GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 509353
Bogofilter plugin doesn't work
Last modified: 2008-03-19 05:54:15 UTC
Please describe the problem: The Bogofilter junk mail filter plugin has stopped working in this version of Evo, though it did work on previous versions. The BF database has not changed since the days when it used to work. No matter how many spam/ham messages are used for training, no incoming message is ever marked as Junk. Steps to reproduce: 1. Use Evo 2. Receive spam 3. See it in the Inbox Actual results: Nothing is ever moved to the Junk folder. Expected results: Some messages to be moved to the Junk folder. Does this happen every time? Yes. Other information:
I also am experiencing this bug, however, it is with evolution 2.21.4 (I haven't tried 2.21.5 but since I see nothing in the changelog, I haven't installed it yet)
Patrick, can you check whether the check-for-junk works? Message->Check for junk. Just select a junk mail and do this.
Srinivasa, I tried Message->Check For Junk (on a junk message in my Inbox) and nothing happened. Just for completeness, let me say that BF is the default Junk plugin, BF is enabled, SA is disabled, and the "check for junk in Incoming" flag is on.
Same experience here as Patrick, although I had SA disabled, I tried enabling and then disabling, likewise with the BF, disabled and then enabled.
Any of you build from source? In that case, we can meet on chat to debug more.
I do - I run Gentoo, just be warned, its an 850mhz and takes about 2 1/2 hours to build evolution :) I am on #gnome-hackers - my nick is the ever original steev (I am also on Freenode)
One additional data point: my complaints about junk filtering are all from my home machine, which is where I mostly work, but I also recently set Evo up to use BF on my office machine and the same thing happens. This is also Fedora 8, Evo 2.12. What makes this interesting is that I've just noticed that on the office machine I don't have a ~/.bogofilter directory, and hence no wordlist.db, but I've been merrily clicking away on the Junk icon and hearing no complaint from Evo, i.e. even when BF *cannot possibly be working* Evo doesn't say anything. The BF man page says it should give an exit status of 3 if the wordlist.db file cannot be read. Is Evo checking this?
Guys, export CAMEL_DEBUG="junk" export CAMEL_VERBOSE_DEBUG=1 Run Evolution with these. Beware, it can expose your personal mails on the log. mask them and put the logs here. It can help me to see what is happening. FWIW, it works for me on trunk. Possible that it is a fedora specific issue.
Created attachment 103349 [details] Debug log from Evo OK, I did as Srini requested and here's the log (compressed). I also ran Evo under gdb with a breakpoint set at pipe_to_bogofilter(), which never fired. My man-in-the-middle script for bogofilter also shows no activity. It's pretty clear that BF is not being called.
Bogofilter is working fine for me with evolution-2.21.5-2.fc9 on Fedora 8. My ~/bogofilter/wordlist.db file was modified just today. Note that for Fedora 9 I split the bogofilter plugin into a separate subpackage, evolution-bogofilter. But I've not heard any reports of that causing problems. This sounds like a configuration issue. Probably mentioned already on the mailing list, but just as a sanity check: 1) Make sure the Bogofilter junk plugin is enabled (Edit->Plugins). 2) In the Junk tab under Mail Preferences, make sure Bogofilter is selected as the "Default junk plugin" [*]. 3) In the same tab, make sure you see the message "Bogofilter plugin is available and the binary is installed." [*] "Default"? Don't we mean "Active"?
I think, matt's questions may help you get it working.
Created attachment 103363 [details] Evo Junk preferences dialogue I attach a screenshot of the dialogue. Note that the Default Junk plugin box looks blank, but when I click on it the word Bogofilter appears. When I click outside the box, it goes blank again. The message "Bogofilter plugin is available and the binary is installed." does *not* appear, though both /usr/bin/bogofilter and the following: /etc/gconf/schemas/bogo-junk-plugin.schemas /usr/lib/evolution/2.12/plugins/liborg-gnome-bogo-junk-plugin.so /usr/lib/evolution/2.12/plugins/org-gnome-bogo-junk-plugin.eplug all exist. My version of Evo is evolution-2.12.2-3.fc8. Changing to the fc9 version would mean upgrading over 150 packages to development versions. Sorry, it's not going to happen.
Try running Evolution from a terminal. Do you see any warnings printed when you click on or around the junk plugin combo? Looks like it's malfunctioning, which is likely the source or a direct symptom of the problem.
See the log I posted earlier, obtained from: evolution > EVO_DEBUG 2&1 & with export CAMEL_DEBUG="junk" and export CAMEL_VERBOSE_DEBUG=1 Nothing happens when I click on the Junk icon except that the message is moved to the Junk virtual folder, *without* calling BF.
I've now upgrade to 2.12.3 (evolution-2.12.3-1.fc8 and evolution-data-server-1.12.3-1.fc8) with no change to the problem, i.e. junk filtering still doesn't work, /usr/bin/bogofilter is still not being called etc.
Following a suggestion on the Evo list, I configured a completely new user account on my machine and set up Evo under it, using Bogofilter. Judging by modifications to my man-in-the-middle log file and to the wordlist.db mod time, this instance appears to work (I'd need a longer test to see if it's actually filtering spam but at least the BF executable is being called when I hit the Junk button). I also note that the Preferences dialogue is now correctly legible, unlike the screenshot I posted earlier. So the problem appears to be related to Gconf and/or .evolution in my normal user account. I've no idea how to track down the problem from here on.
OK, I think it's been solved, thanks to help from <psmith@gnu.org>. The problem was an inconsistent Gconf database. The default_plugin entry under apps -> evolution -> mail -> junk was set to Spamassassin, even though the SA plugin was disabled. This also explains the peculiar GUI bug shown in the screenshot I posted earlier. I manually changed the field to Bogofilter and restarted Evo, and it appears to be working. Evo needs more rigorous consistency checks for these settings.
Closing based on comment #17 .