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When I send a mail, it takes several minutes (~20) to finish this task. I can see a status bar item, percents increasing. I wouldn't mind much; the problem is that until it's done, I can't see the mail in the Sent folder and can't work with it.

This behavior started without any reconfiguration. Other users of the same mail server do not experience this trouble.

How can I fix this?

Versions: Ubuntu 11.04 Evolution 2.32.2

Update: I found out that the messages are actually staying in Outbox and not outgoing at all if one particular SMTP server is used. When I tried to "Flush" the Outbox, it shown "Sending...", but nothing changed nor was sent. When I try to "expunge" outbox, Evolution says:

MBOX file corrupted, expected From: but didn't find.

and later

Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync

Any idea how to fix this? Preferably without need to drop & set up everything anew.

And where does Evolution store it's .mbox files? ~/.evolution does not exist. ~/.gconf/apps/evolution/ only contains configuration.

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    Is it at least closing the message editor window for you -- or does that stay open until the mail was sent completely? If it got closed, you should be able to see the mail in the outgoing folder while it is still being transmitted. For me the most annoying part is it keeps the editor window open all the time (did not do this in previous versions -- and I don't know how to change that).
    – Izzy
    Jul 11, 2012 at 8:52
  • Indeed, it's in Outbox, I had the "local" tree collapsed all the time since I have all accounts as IMAP. Thanks. Jul 11, 2012 at 15:24
  • My editor window closes right at clicking "send". Adding versions info to the question. Jul 11, 2012 at 15:24
  • 1) you're welcome -- glad I could help! 2) version makes the difference. I'm now on 12.04, and the editor window stays open all the time until the mail is successfully sent. THAT sucks! Don't want to think of my sanity if sending took as long as in your case...
    – Izzy
    Jul 11, 2012 at 15:52
  • PS: So was your question "how can I see the message while it is being sent" -- or was it "how can I find out (and fix) why it takes that long"? Maybe you edit your question to make this clear ;)
    – Izzy
    Jul 11, 2012 at 15:55

3 Answers 3

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Answering the first part of the question (where can I see my message while it's being sent):

While being sent, the message can be found in the "Outbox", which is located in the "local tree" of the mail accounts. Only when sent successfully (i.e. delivered to the configured SMTP server -- which does not necessarily mean it already reached the recipient), it gets stored within the "Sent" folder.

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Ondra, it would have been better you'd opened a new question instead of completely changing the topic :)

And where does Evolution store it's .mbox files?

Not sure about the .mbox files as I don't use local storage. But usually, all of Evolutions data files are located in ~/.local/share/evolution, while configuration stuff went to ~/.config/evolution. The third place involved you already discovered (~/.gconf/apps/evolution). Gone the days where things have been easy with everything located in ~/.evolution -- that folder is not used anymore at all with current versions.

How to fix this (trouble with certain SMTP server)?

Logs are helpful. Try contacting the servers admin, maybe it's not at all the fault of Evolution -- or the server's logs provide useful information to isolate the problem). Until solved, try using a different SMTP server: either the admin has a secondary you could use, or some other admin permits you to "relay" via his server.

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  • I was considering asking another question but since it all evolved around a common problem, I wanted to keep it here. Jul 13, 2012 at 16:00
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    I see. So I take it the long delay was due to the broken mbox files, and then it fits ;)
    – Izzy
    Jul 13, 2012 at 17:07
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Ok so I have figured out few things.

1) The files are in MBOX format, but not named *.mbox.

2) They are stored in .local/share/evolution/mail/local, at least in my case.

3) Non-redundant data are stored in the files without suffix. The rest is generated and can be deleted manually and re-generated (.ibex, .index etc.)

4) Exporting backup and restoring from it did not help. Seems that evolution just gzips the files as is.

So what fixed it for me was:

  1. Close Evolution
  2. Delete /home/ondra/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/Outbox.* (NOT that without suffix)
  3. Launch Evolution

  4. Fix your SMTP if necessary to make all mails go.

  5. Flush Outbox to send pending messages and get them moved to IMAP server (deleted locally)
  6. Close Evolution
  7. Delete Oubox* - this time all Outbox files. All mails shown in Evolution at this time are probably broken and unrecoverable (easily). Outbox will be recreated.
  8. Delete folders.db - it will get recreated from the MBOX files
  9. Launch Evolution

Tadaa!

Sources:

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    You'll sometimes recover messages from these locations, but overall evolutions seems quite bad about loosing messages waiting in the outbox until it sees internet connectivity. Jul 11, 2017 at 15:36

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