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garyk

Member

Registered: 2018-04-14

Posts: 40  

Very odd problem with Evolution (solved)

For the last couple of months I've had a problem where evolution could not reach my ISP's imap server.  It would work intermittently for a couple of weeks and then stop for a week or two, and then start up and work again consistently for a week or so.  Then two weeks ago all communication between Evolution and the email server stopped. 

In my efforts to solve this I finally tried directly wiring my laptop to my router.  Immediately success.  My email worked again.  Unplugged the ethernet cable and no more email.  I messed around purging evolution and reinstalling it with no joy.  I installed kmail and once again had email via wireless. 

Anyone else ever run across something like this before? 

I'm running Beowulf and it is up to date.

Last edited by garyk (2019-11-12 15:14:22)

garyk

Member

Registered: 2018-04-14

Posts: 40  

Re: Very odd problem with Evolution (solved)

OK.  I found some info today from here.  You can see the result below when running the command.  Evolution will download email until it is closed and then on startup it will once again report the network outage when trying to connect to the wireless network. 

 GIO_USE_NETWORK_MONITOR=base evolution

(evolution:18079): Gtk-WARNING **: 15:25:41.507: Failed to register client: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method "RegisterClient" with signature "ss" on interface "org.xfce.Session.Manager" doesn't exist

(evolution:18079): evolution-util-WARNING **: 15:26:02.074: Nonsensical (120% complete) reported on activity "Fetching summary information for new messages in “username@isp.net : INBOX”"
   

Starting evolution this way after the first attempt reproduces the first error but not the second.  Starting it from the bash prompt or from the gui menu forces it offline once again.  The why of it failing to startup normally when using wireless and successfully starting up and reaching a wired connection baffles me.  Why would it produce the error in one mode and not the other?

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: Very odd problem with Evolution (solved)

A first look at gateway and DNS of the two connections?

Rolfie

garyk

Member

Registered: 2018-04-14

Posts: 40  

Re: Very odd problem with Evolution (solved)

A first look at gateway and DNS of the two connections?

Rolfie

Both wired and wireless connections are supplied by the same router.  So if I had gateway issues or DNS issues I couldn't be posting here as all internet access would be affected.  I'm posting here using wireless.  The only symptom is no wireless email using Evolution.  Everything else works fine.  I can get email over the wireless connection using kmail and both applications use the same wireless connection. 

The problem is specific to Evolution.  That is the only application that is having any issue related to wireless.

The problem, but I'm only guessing at this point, seems to me to be related to the behind the gui processes that evolution uses to access wireless networking.  It just doesn't seem logical to me though that it would use different processes to access wired and wireless networking.  It looks to me by the error reported in starting evolution from a bash prompt like some configuration file is corrupted somewhere in the process of starting Evolution because of the GTK warnings printed out.  But I know next to nothing about those processes.

Last edited by garyk (2019-11-10 12:18:57)

garyk

Member

Registered: 2018-04-14

Posts: 40  

Re: Very odd problem with Evolution (solved)

OK.  This is now solved.  I got some help from a Gnome developer on the Gnome evolution-list mailing list.  He said it was most likely a recent update that broke Evolution for me.

I have used Evolution for years but hadn't been into the Network Preferences tab inside Preferences in years as there wasn't really anything to set there before.  There's a new, or at least new to me, drop down list that gives several options for network detection.  I had to change from "default" to "base" to get wireless to start working again. It still throws the same error when starting Evolution from a bash prompt, but at least it is working now.  The other options on the list didn't work for me. 

So, if anyone else has Evolution network detection broken that drop down list is the solution.

Last edited by garyk (2019-11-12 15:19:09)