[AuckLUG] Evolution email files

[Vincente Aggrippino]

Rick,
    When you're prompted to skip, there's a file name there.  It might not
be a complete file name.  It probably only has the part of the file name
from the beginning until the character that messed it up.  I've seen this
before.  I just can't remember, or reproduce, the exact circumstances.  You
need to know this full file name in order to solve the problem.

Let's say, for example, that the directory you want to back up is
/home/rick/.evolution and the directory you want to back it up to is
/home/rick/backup

Please run either of the following commands from /home/rick and paste some
of the output in a reply...
cp -r .evolution backup
    or
tar -cvjf backup/evolution_backup.tar.bz2 .evolution

This way, we can better help you to discover the cause of the problem.  I've
seen similar problems before and it always comes down to a character in a
file that the command is trying to interpret as an argument.

tar is a better tool for backing up the directory, but this kind of error
will, understandably, affect cp, tar, or even one of the popular file
managers.

I've been trying to reproduce the problem you describe, but without luck.  I
made a .evolution directory and a backup directory and tried to create some
file names that would mess up other commands.  Everything works, though.  I
have come up with some pretty interesting results.  Check this out...
vince at vjlaptop:~$ ls -ltr .evolution
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:05 fishy-file.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:05 fishy'file.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:09 fishy -file.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:12 -fishy_file.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:13 vaggrippino at gmail.com
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:31 crazy?file.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:32 crazy?file.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 vince vince 0 2007-01-18 22:34 crazy?file.txt

It looks like I have three files with the same name.  That's actually
crazy<Carriage
Return>file.txt, crazy<Escape Character>file.txt, and crazy?file.txt.  I
suspect this is the ls command protecting me from having a messed up
directory listing.

The point I'm getting at is that a Linux file name can literally have any
character in it.  Some commands will accommodate these and others will not.
Consider also that wildcard characters (*, ?) are interpolated by the shell
before the command is ever executed.

-- Vince

On 1/18/07, Rick <rleck at pl.net> wrote:
>
> Thanks Ron and Vincente
>
> I have done what you both suggested, and it always works, on everyone
> else's machine but my own! the errors I get when I try to tar, backup or
> copy apply to almost every file in the address and the mail folders.
> Untaring such a backup onto a new machine results in completely useless
> gibberish. I don't have any unusual file/folder names within evolution
> and the program runs. It just won't let me copy the files without
> errors. I have also chowned etc recursively to see if it's an
> ownership/permissions issue. No luck.
>
> Still, thanks for the suggestions!
>
> Rick
>
>
> On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 21:06 +1300, Ron Wilson wrote:
>
> > I have backed up and restored .evolution files many times with no
> > problem. I just Tar the whole .evolution folder and rebuild the PC and
> > then restore the tar file from my user folder
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AuckLUG mailing list
> AuckLUG at linux.net.nz
> http://www.linux.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aucklug
>