Evolution mess
Les
hlhowell at pacbell.net
Tue Dec 14 17:25:50 UTC 2010
On Tue, 2010-12-14 at 04:16 -0800, Les wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-12-13 at 16:25 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On Mon, 2010-12-13 at 04:14 -0800, Les wrote:
> > > Hi, everyone,
> > > Continuing my issues with moving to 64 bit and porting stuff, evolution
> > > has a phantom contact list. As you can see in the attached screenshot,
> > > the first "on this computer>personal" contact list doesn't appear to
> > > exist. The other one is the good one. I don't appear to be able to
> > > move the second "on this computer>personal" or even copy or move its
> > > contents to the first "on this computer>personal" list. Neither can I
> > > delete the first one, because the delete option is disabled in the menu.
> > > I suspect that there is an error in my personal .evolution folder that
> > > is causing this, but I am unsure about editing those settings without
> > > advice or a reference.
> > >
> > > My google searches have not turned up anything I could use.
> > >
> > > Any assistance or advice would be helpful.
> >
> > Start by stating what version of Evo you have. F14 includes 2.32, which
> > moved stuff around, e.g. ~/.evolution no longer contains most of the
> > config info.
> >
> > poc
> >
>
> Well, I'm making progress.
> I have tracked the setup and config files to ~.gconf/apps/evolution.
> In the Addressbook folder there, there is a %gconf.xml file (unique
> call having all these files named as %gconf.xml) Anyway, I edit the one
> in ~/.gconf/apps/evolution/addressbook, and I find that it has two
> entries:
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> <li type="string">
> <stringvalue><?xml version="1.0"?>
> <group uid="1162801071.10728.17 at localhost.localdomain"
> name="On This Computer" base_uri="local:"
> readonly="no"><source
> uid="1162801071.10728.18 at localhost.localdomain"
> name="Personal"
> uri="file:///home/lesh/.evolution/addressbook/local/system"
> relative_uri="system"><properties><property
> name="completion" value="true"/><property
> name="pilot-sync" value="true"/><property
> name="use-in-contacts-calendar"
> value="0"/></properties></source><source
> uid="1163129951.18548.0 at localhost.localdomain"
> name="Personal2"
> relative_uri="1163129951.18548.0 at localhost.localdomain"><properties><property name="completion" value="true"/><property name="remember_password" value="false"/></properties></source></group>
> </stringvalue>
> </li>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> and
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> <li type="string">
> <stringvalue><?xml version="1.0"?>
> <group uid="1292063110.2475.0 at school3" name="On This
> Computer" base_uri="local:"
> readonly="no"><source
> uid="1292063110.2475.1 at school3" name="Personal"
> relative_uri="system"><properties><property
> name="completion" value="true"/><property
> name="remember_password"
> value="false"/></properties></source></group>
> </stringvalue>
> </li>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> So far so good. Now in the first list string, there is a file referred
> to as personal2. This file operates as it should.
> The first name entry as personal does not. It doesn't appear to have a
> file associated with it. Since there is a personal address book
> associated with the second entry, I think all I should have to do is
> edit this %gonf.xml file and change the entry reference to match the
> second one. But that brings up a question of where the actual file is
> and if it is in the correct place? If it is not, then the next software
> update would mess things up again. If anyone can shed some light on
> this, I would appreciate it. How does the link mentioned, which appears
> to be 1292063110.2475 at localhost.localdomain get resolved to point to the
> file?
>
> Regards,
> Les Howell
>
>
Still probling:
I have traced the files down to actually being named as follows:
/home/"username"/.local/share/evolution/addressbook/1163129951.18548.0 at localhost.localdomain is the directory, and the file is addressbook.db or addressbook.db.summary. These both appear to be database files encoded into records that a texteditor cannot resolve. I suspect that with a bit more sleuthing I could figure that out as well. But here is the interesting part, this appears to be the first reference, not the second, yet I get the second personal entry in the Evolution display to show up correctly but not the first?
<rant>
Moreover this is a fragile file structure, relying on a database file
in one directory to link and be synchronous with a ".xml" file in
another directory. Additionally the path to the relevant database must
be encoded in yet another xml file. Worse still is the "%gconf.xml"
files which are differentiated by directory only, yet have different
contents. This kind of convoluted programming is what causes programs
to be vulnerable.
Worse is a system file that is binary encoded. This means that it
requires some sort of dedicated editor to manipulate it. What happened
to the opensource credo of not hiding your own data and information
hostage?
With todays processors, it is unnecessary obfuscation to encode data
like this. Worse still, it binds data to specific applications, when
such binding should be avoided.
As I looked at the .gconf directory and its ensconced files, it appears
to be a central weak link, binary encoded, database driven with non-text
databases. I can find my way through it, but it is unnecessarily
complicated, especially for something that is at its core a completely
text based utility, which should support graphics, but not be driven by
them.
</rant>
While this appears to be primarily my evolution application that is
messed up, it also appears that firefox has a related problem, as I
cannot get it to set the home directory so it comes up pointing at the
home directory I want. But I'll start another issue with that. I can
bugzilla both I guess, since neither one appears to be specifically
fedora related.
Anyway, if anyone else has experienced what I am seeing (call it an
orphan file or file entry), then maybe we can work together to build a
simple explanation of the linkages and some way to verify them.
Regards,
Les H
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