Ubuntu
evolution package

Cannot open address book

Asked by Martin Baumann

Running Ubuntu jaunty on a Dell desktop, until now with Thunderbird for email. Recently acquired a Samsung netbook, on which I installed Ubuntu netbook remix, which introduced me to Evolution. Whole set-up works fine and I like the look and feel of it. For simplicity and communality, I installed Evolution on the Dell as well.
Because I run two accounts and some filters, I migrated the Samsung Evolution set-up to the Dell, using Backup (on the Samsung) and Restore (on the Dell) across my LAN. That all worked fine too, except for the address books (5): they show up, but cannot be opened. Errer message is:
"This address book cannot be opened. Please check that the path /home/mcb/.evolution/addressbook/local/1244723840.13726.1@rdlc23dell exists and that permissions are set to access it.
Detailed error message: Permission denied"
I can create a new address book, but get the same error message when I try to open it. And I cannot delete any of these address books, nor can I actually find them anywhere, say /home/.evolution/ or /usr/share/evolution.
I have actually uninstalled evolution completely, cleared the relevant files and re-installed - still the address books appear, but are not accessible.
What should I do?

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#1

>Detailed error message: Permission denied

Probably lost permissions during migration.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions

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Martin Baumann (mcbaumann) said : 		#2

Thanks Sam. It is a little more complicated than that, I have discovered:
the problem seems to be in the file names: on the source computer (Samsung), the home directory is /home/mcb, whilst on the target machine (Dell), it is /home/MCB. So Evolution is looking for an addressbook in /home/mcb/.evolution, whereas it is actually located in /home/MCB/.evolution. So - presumably - the question becomes: how can I change where Evolution looks for the address book?
What is interesting is that it finds the mails.
Thanks for some more help.

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

Same procedure (as suggested in the tutorial), it's a permission issue, because the owner of /home on Dell is 'MCB'.
To check permissions:
cd /home/MCB/.evolution
ls -al

##Output e.g.
drwxr-xr-x 3 MCB MCB addressbook
[directory 755]
-rw-r--r-- 1 MCB MCB addressbook.db
[file 644]

add:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MigrateEvolutionToNewComputer
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Evolution

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Martin Baumann (mcbaumann) said : 		#4

Thank you, Sam. I have checked on the permissions for the addressbook files. Here, for example, the output for one of them on the Dell. It corresponds exactly to that for the same directory on the Samsung, with the exception of the user and group, which are small case, ie. mcb mcb.

MCB@rdlc23dell:~/.evolution/addressbook/local/system$ ls -al
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 MCB MCB 4096 2009-05-19 16:48 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 MCB MCB 4096 2009-05-19 16:59 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 MCB MCB 12288 2009-05-19 16:48 addressbook.db
-rw-r--r-- 1 MCB MCB 1368 2009-05-19 16:48 addressbook.db.summary
MCB@rdlc23dell:~/.evolution/addressbook/local/system$

The error message on Evolution is unchanged, ie.
Error loading address book.
This address book cannot be opened. Please check that the path /home/mcb/.evolution/addressbook/local/system exists and that permissions are set to access it.
Detailed error message: Permission denied

Is the path not case sensitive? Evolution is looking for /home/mcb/*, whereas the actual file is under /home/MCB/*.
Appreciate your help.
Martin

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#5

Of course it's case sensitive, that's why permission is denied, owner mcb isn't owner MCB.
Obvious:
Please check that the path /home/mcb/.evolution/addressbook/local/system exists and that permissions are set to access it.

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Martin Baumann (mcbaumann) said : 		#6

Hence my question, Sam: how can I change the path, ie. target directory, in Evolution? It currently looks for ~/mcb/.evolution/ when in fact it should look for ~/MCB/.evolution/...
In Thunderbird, I can change the target path in the account settings, but I have not found a way to do the same in Evolution.
Thanks,
Martin

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Best Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#7

Well, I don't use any local mail app at all, but settings and registry data of evolution are in gconf.
You may check the correct path in gconf:
apps/evolution/addressbook

The .xml file should be in
~/MCB/.gconf/apps/evolution/addressbook

Backup is recommended.
Via GUI in evolution itself or manually.

Not sure if manually editing makes it necessary to shutdown evolution completely including background services. Please note the links mentioned already.
#in case
evolution --force-shutdown

##Backup e.g. with gconftool via terminal
see also manpage:
man gconftool
##would be something like this:
gconftool --dump /apps/evolution > ~/evolution-gconf-backup.xml.dump

http://library.gnome.org/users/gconf-editor/2.22/getting-started.html.en

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Martin Baumann (mcbaumann) said : 		#8

Thank you, Sam, that's finally done it. Appreciate your help.