Was support for KOLAB dropped from KDEPIM?

Strunzdesign

Hi,

today I updated my system to kde-apps 16.12.0 including the now unmasked KDEPIM packages. Having all the issues in mind that are already discussed in another thread in this forum, I was finally able to update everything. Unfortunately, I'm having problems accessing my local kolab server now. I'm not able to make my kolab-based kalendar / contacs show up in kaddressbook / korganizer / kontact.

I remember that libkolab and libkolabxml were masked and later dropped some weeks ago, but I update my system on a daily basis and had no problems with my old 4.11.14-based KDEPIM packages accessing those resources of my kolab server. But today, after updating, it seems impossible to add the IMAP-based calendar and contacs folders to the respective KDEPIM applications. Wading through the kolab and KDE mailing lists as well as their bug trackers did not bring such issues to light, so it seems that I missed something here. I just see the folders in KMail, can "tag" them as "contains calendar data" or "contains contacs", but these folders do not appear in the respective applications.

Does anybody here know whether support for kolab was dropped in the recent KDEPIM packages? AFAIK kontact was the reference client for kolab, and as the libkolab and libkolabxml packages were dropped from portage, I asked myself regarding the future direction of kolab support in kontact. Is kolab dead now in terms of KF5?

Regards,
Florian

asturm · Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 5:43 pm Post subject:

Someone just needs to package libkolabxml again, but as split packages this time. Last time I looked at it though, it was a nightmare.
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backend.cpp:92:2: warning: #warning TODO - this error message is about as useful as a cooling unit in the arctic

Strunzdesign · Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 6:10 pm Post subject:

Hi asturm,

thanks for your quick response. Do you have an idea why I was able to keep on accessing my kolab server even with libkolab and libkolabxml removed weeks ago, including recompiling all packages that reffered to those removed libraries? It worked flawlessly... however, I wondered what those libraries were for... if accessing kolab worked well even without them, they seemed not to be relevant anymore?! Furthermore, there was a kolab use flag that was responsible for building the kolab akonadi resource. Even without that resource, my system worked well.

So, would adding libkolab / libkolabxml back to portage be sufficient, or are there subsequent missing pieces such as an akonadi resource for kolab? Seems I have to revert the update now or to migrate to something else (ownclound perhaps?). Unfortunetely, I have no idea how to extract my contacts and addresses from my kolab server, without having a working client. Not good. Is the kolab team aware of the issues with libkolabxml?

Regards,
Florian

zBrain · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Apr 2006 Posts: 148

On another thread at https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8023134.html#8023134 I detailed how kmail (and kontact) began to crash at startup. The resolution was to move to a new home dir, but now, upon doing that I discovered I could not add a kolab resource.

I came to discover this thread to find the use flag and all references to kolab disappeared upon a routine update and broke people's email with no warning.

Is there any effort being made to rectify this? It's pretty frustrating.

asturm · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2017 7:06 pm Post subject:

I would like to, but it's not high up my list. I can't test it to begin with, without a kolab instance. The old libkolabxml package clearly was broken, though.
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backend.cpp:92:2: warning: #warning TODO - this error message is about as useful as a cooling unit in the arctic

zBrain · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Apr 2006 Posts: 148

I could possibly set you up with a kolab vm to test if it would help.

asturm · Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:30 pm Post subject:

So today libkolab was merged into kdepim-runtime git master in order to resuscitate the code. Right now it still depends on libkolabxml but they plan to remove that dependency. That also confirmed my cautiousness about even looking at the package, as it seems to have stalled upstream and been kind of broken. So while that does not give you a working kolab resource today, at least there are developments to look forward to.
_________________
backend.cpp:92:2: warning: #warning TODO - this error message is about as useful as a cooling unit in the arctic

zBrain · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Apr 2006 Posts: 148

Any updates on this? I'd like to move back to Gentoo on my desktop but my reliance on kolab is too high to ignore. It's forced me to another distro for the last while.

kensington · Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 7:59 am Post subject:

I see that kdepim-master still has a libkolab-xml dependency (which I remember too as being awful to package).