[SOLVED] Evolution error: Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync

[chainfall]

Greetings...

I'm getting the dreaded "Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync" with Evolution.
I realize that this error has been beaten to death. I have searched exhaustively for an answer. That is I searched until I was exhausted.

Running F17 with Evolution 3.4.3. This is a fresh install.

The problem only happens with local email and not mail from my ISP.

I restored evolution's data from backup since I was using it on F15 before.

I want to receive root's email to my account. So this is my configuration.

I created an alias in /etc/aliases to direct root's mail to my account.
# Person who should get root's mail
root: mksmith

In the Evolution mail accounts, I have the local mail configured as "Standard Unix mbox spool file" and I have selected the file: /var/spool/mail/mksmith

I can send mail to root by doing mail -s hello root

I can see the message in the inbox but that is when I get the error:
Error while Refreshing folder 'INBOX'.
Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync

If I attempt to open the message I get:
Unable to retrieve message.
Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync

If I use mail in a terminal, I can see and read all the messages no problem.

Some of the things I've tried to resolve this issue:

Set Evolution to offline and close it.
Use mail from a terminal and delete all the messages.
Delete all the appropriate files to let Evolution recreate the indexes.
folders.db
INBOX.cmeta
INBOX.ibex.index
INBOX.ibex.index.data

Restart Evolution.
As soon as I get local mail, the problem returns.

Also tried:
Deleting the local mail account in Evolution and starting over.
Tried setting Evolution server type to anything that made sense. Local delivery, Standard Unix mbox spool directory, maildir format mail directory, and MH-format mail directory. None of this helped.
From /home/mksmith/.local/share/evolution/ did a chown -R mksmith:mksmith *
Go through the directories and make sure the UID/GID and file permissions were correct.

Now considering it was working perfectly running on F15, I thought well maybe something got messed up when I restored Evolution's data from backup. But I just can't seem to find it.

All the bug reports I've looked at are older reports and I think I've tried everything that was suggested.

I really need some guidance here. I'm ripping my hair out because this should be simple.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Mitch

[chainfall]

I was finally able to solve this problem. It's more like a workaround.

Add a mail account

Server type: Local Delivery
Note: This was the only way to get this to work.

File location: /var/spool/mail/<my_mail_file>

Sending email server type: Sendmail

Create a new folder called LocalMail
Create a mail filtering rule which moves any email from the domain localhost to the LocalMail folder.

It seems there is no way to automatically check for email with this. You have to hit Send/Receive periodically.
Not sure why there is no option to check for mail every 10 minutes.

I hope this helps someone.

[MartinK]

I also have the problem described above, encountered when using /etc/aliases to redirect root's mail to my own login ID's mailbox. I have Fedora 17 and Evolution 3.4.4 with a 'spool' type mailbox configured.

My question, what is the difference between sending an Email with Evolution and sending with the mail utility?

I created a 'test' user ID and for that user configured Evolution with a spool mailbox only. If I login to Fedora alternately with my own and the test account, and use Evolution or Linux mail to send Emails between the two user accounts I find;

Sending from within Evolution nearly always works,

Sending with Linux mail nearly always fails, i.e. gives rise to "Unable to retrieve message. Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync" in Evolution.

To get Evolution reading the spool mailbox again I simply use Linux mail to delete the message that caused the problem, then Evolution is happy.

I tried redirecting root mail to the test account, it nearly always fails.

The fault is not always repeatable. There must be some factor involved that I am missing.

I have not tried chainfall's Evolution workaround, I just use mail to read root's messages. Like chainfall I have reached the end of my tether with this.

Is anyone else seeing this behaviour?

Regards,
Martin.

[chainfall]

Martin,

I am still using my workaround with no ill effects.

Have not received any other replies on this issue.

Mitch

[MartinK]

Mitch, thanks for confirming that your workaround worked for you, but I am going down a different route.

Initially I was determined to make Evolution work, so reinstalled it. First I gave my computer a Fully Qualified Domain Name, as described in thread 285530. Next I removed the Evolution package. Then deleted all Evolution files from user home directories .cache, .config, .gconf, .local and emptied user spool files in /var/spool/mail. Then reinstalled the Evolution package. All mail functions worked - for a day. 24 hours after a cron generated mail to root successfully arrived in my inbox the exact same message the following day put me back to "Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync". No configuration changes of any kind in the interim. As you say, this used to work. I ran Fedora 7 and 10 on an iMac G4 PPC, then Fedora 12 X86_64 on a laptop before installing F17 on same laptop.

I then tried your workaround but when I create an Evolution account of Server Type Local Delivery, shown as type "mbox" in Evolution Preferences / Mail Accounts, even though "enabled" it is not shown in the Folder List. Change the type to "spool" there it is, back to "mbox", account not listed again. I can't spend any more time on this.

There is a postscript. When I installed F17 I was taken aback by the Gnome 3 user interface, and soon found it impossible to stay with. I have moved to LXDE. One mouse click on the task bar to go to the app I want suits me much better. The 'lightweight' approach suits my laptop better too. I have installed Claws Email client for test purposes so my days with Evolution may be numbered.

Regards,
Martin.

[chainfall]

I feel your pain Martin.

It's hard to say how many hours I spent troubleshooting this problem. I became very frustrated trying to fix something that use to work fine.

Gnome 3 seems to get more bloated with each update. I dual boot Win 7 and F17 and now Win 7 actually loads up faster then Gnome! I've spent many hours tweaking Gnome 3 just to make it usable.

I've gotten use to Gnome 3's behaviour at this point. Still I don't like it all that much. If integration was a little better I might switch to xfce or something similar. I'm a huge fan of lightweight applications also.

Well good luck with claws. I hope it gets you away from Evolution.

Mitch

[bmike]

Same issue.

I'm using, or rather trying to use, version 3.6.2 that came with FC-18.

I can't seem to work around the missmatch problem.

I had been using Evolution 2.28, and occationally it would do this Summary and folder mismatch thing. I don't know why. But to fix it, i would rename/mv the existing inbox in /var/spool/mail to something else. Create a new inbox that was empty. Restart Evolution. Delete all messages in the inbox (which where only in the evoultion index, remember the new inbox was empty). Then i would "cat oldbox >>newbox" while evolution was running. Evolution would see the "new mail" and (re) build a summary index. Life was good for a month, sometimes 2, sometimes only a few days.

In 2.28 i noticed that the bigger the inbox and the longer was the period that evolution was not used, the higher the likelyhood of the mismatch error. If i was away for a weekend the chances where higher, away for a whole week and it was almost sure to happen. Once in a great while, just the next day.

I just installed FC-18. I can live with the gnome headache of too much movement, mouse clicks, and switching between mouse and keyboard to get anything done. Not fun, but eventually it works... and i think i can configure my way past this.

Not Evolution.

I can't get this to work... unless i nearly empty out my inbox.

The old 2.28 version would occationally flake out with over 1000 messages.

This version, 3.6.2, can't seem to handle 50 messages.

This is intollerable!

This new version is also blind to my old local folders. Thankfully, with "find" i can find them. So i know they are still there. But evolution 3.6.2 can't see the old folders from 2.28... and this after it rearranged everything to its own liking... automatically... without asking me! NOT nice!

My setup is: Everything is local delivery to one inbox in /var/spool/mail. Outbound is sendmail (this works).

I have some 800 inbound aliases that all filter into one account. (i got the idea from a friend that used to send charitable contributions with a different middle name each time... this way he could see which organizations where selling his name to which other organizations). Of those 800 inbound aliases, about 50 have corresponding evolution accounts for out going mail. In version 2.28 this worked. Version 3.6.2 can't seem to load all of them for display... it also now sorts them alphabetically, so my more popular ones are nolonger at the top, if they are not lost to the display. Although, i must say, it is good about automatically choosing the right one for reply, even if it can't seem to show it in the menu.

Meanwhile this Summary and Folder mismatch is a show stopper.

HELP
! ! ! ! !

[MartinK]

Sorry to say I found no fix re Evolution. As intimated above I did migrate to a whole new setup, LXDE, Claws and others. A bit of work but I'm happy now.

No help to you, admittedly, but there are alternatives to Evolution (and Gnome).

Regards,
Martin.