#549451 impossible to override offline mode when using network-manager

Package:
evolution
Source:
evolution
Description:
groupware suite with mail client and organizer
Submitter:
Felix Koop
Date:
2025-08-17 17:47:22 UTC
Severity:
important
Tags:
#549451#5
Date:
2009-10-03 13:08:54 UTC
From:
To:
Since the last upgrade, evolution always starts in offline mode. What can I change to have it start in online mode?
#549451#10
Date:
2009-10-03 19:58:27 UTC
From:
To:
Check your network-manager settings, maybe? (in gconf or something). And
if you use nm, be sure you are indeed connected.

#549451#15
Date:
2009-10-03 21:07:15 UTC
From:
To:
I have a fixed IP address, the interface is always up and running and
even if I am online with evolution, stop evolution and restart it again,
it starts offline. So the external connection is not the problem, that
connection exists.

#549451#20
Date:
2009-10-03 21:13:16 UTC
From:
To:
I was asking about the network-manager status. Check that the gconf
setup is correct.

In particular, check the following key:

/apps/evolution/shell/start_offline

Cheers,

#549451#25
Date:
2009-10-03 21:28:21 UTC
From:
To:
Sorry, I don't know how to check that everything is correct. The key you
mentioned is not set, so it should not start offline.

#549451#30
Date:
2010-06-18 09:24:35 UTC
From:
To:
I am having the same problem, which is also the one (or one related to)
mentioned in bugs 553383, 366338, and 584200.

First of all I am no Linux guru.

Yes, I have NetworkManager running, yes I have "managed=false" in
/etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf.

Though I don't see it as being not correctly setup. It was done
intentionally. I want NM to manage the wireless connection, but I dont
want it to manage the Ethernet one. My network settings works right for
everything else.

It's not much of a problem for me that evolution starts offline, but
what makes this more than a minor bug for me is that I can't put it
online even manually. The option to work "online" from the File menu is
grayed out. And if I am offline I can't Send/REceive mails.

Some people like me might have evolution setup to use a local spool as
the source of the mails and sendmail to send mails; so whether the net
was up or not shouldnt even be an issue.

Anyway I can not go in online mode whether my net is working or not. I
really would not want to change my network settings to make NM manage my
Ethernet connection, I dont see why I should have to, but again I am no guru.

Thanks,
beatrice.

#549451#35
Date:
2010-06-18 09:36:08 UTC
From:
To:
I have no idea, I don't use network-manager. But I do know that it seems
mandatory to have a correctly working NM to have it working at all. Now
managed=false seems to me like completely disabling NM so I'm not that
sure it's a correct setup. You might want to contact upstream to have
more info.

Cheers,

#549451#46
Date:
2010-07-19 06:42:44 UTC
From:
To:
FYI, I've filed a ticket upstream : https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=624701 for this problem.

Hope it will get addressed soon.

Best regards,

#549451#57
Date:
2010-08-26 15:30:56 UTC
From:
To:
I do not use fetchmail. I only use evolution with imap boxes.

Today, I made a test upgrade from a lenny box and because
network-manager chaged its behaviour and no longer manages
wired links by default, evolution suddenly refused to connect
to my imap boxes.

Network-manager knows that it does not manages all the
internet links but evolution apparently thinks that it does.

I would like to be able to at least force evolution not to
trust network-manager.

#549451#64
Date:
2010-10-12 19:03:47 UTC
From:
To:
Ðis is becoming old already, will we need to downgrade Evolution or
remove network-manager?

#549451#69
Date:
2010-10-12 21:33:58 UTC
From:
To:
#549451#76
Date:
2010-11-15 06:00:18 UTC
From:
To:
	For the love of GOD, this is obviously a BUG
in Evolution.  It takes people HOURS to figure out
why they can't send/receive email when they set up
their accounts and it's all because of one shitty package
(Evolution) asking another shitty package (network manager)
whether or not the machine is online.

	The various workarounds mentioned in the upstream
bugs DON'T WORK.  The '--online' switch mentioned in
'evolution --help' DOESN'T WORK, evolution still starts up
offline EVERY TIME.  Worse yet, when the user attempts to
do due diligence and inspect what is going on, he/she finds
that the diagnostic switch '--debug=FILE' DOESN'T WORK.

evolution --online --debug=~/logs/evolution.log

(evolution:30170): evolution-shell-WARNING **: Could not set up
debugging output file.

	Stop consulting network-manager to find out the
status of the network, Pidgin has a startup option to do just that.
Network Manager doesn't manage wired connections by default anymore.
Network Manager, gnome-keyring, all these components that are
supposed to make things easier and more secure for the user
end up doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE because they don't work out
of the box and end up being such an enormous CLUSTERFUCK the
user/administrator throws up his hands and after spending hours just
trying to get a fucking e-mail account set up.  I guarantee you
I've spent 100 times more time wading through endless bug reports
about this then it's taken me to install and setup a bunch of
OE accounts.

	Stop treating the people that file these reports
with condescension or worse yet, ignorance.  If people take the
time to open these reports they know what they are doing, and
it's sad when they know more than the maintainer.
"I don't use network-manager" is NOT A HELPFUL RESPONSE.  We'd all like
to rip out network-manager but we CAN'T, so you, the maintainer,
should get busy trying to fix this.

#549451#81
Date:
2010-11-17 22:05:51 UTC
From:
To:
I totally agree with Dominique Brazziel <dbrazziel@snet.net>

That is not a plausible answer for a package maintainer.
So, if he is unable to fix the package then give the place away for
other person who can do the job.
I have this bug her for ages. I like Linux to but, sometimes Windows
people have some reason when they say that they do not have time to
spend fixing all the Linux bugs that exist.
I have spent days for figuring out what is wrong with Evolution and I
have found that the problem is another package.

That is amazing!
:(

#549451#86
Date:
2010-11-17 22:19:34 UTC
From:
To:
Please do, you're really welcome, thanks for your help.
#549451#91
Date:
2010-11-17 21:47:40 UTC
From:
To:
I totally agree with Dominique Brazziel <dbrazziel@snet.net>

That is not a plausible answer for a package maintainer.
So, if he is unable to fix the package then give the place away for
other person who can do the job.
I have this bug her for ages. I like Linux to but, sometimes Windows
people have some reason when they say that they do not have time to
spend fixing all the linux bugs that exist.
I have spent days for figuring out what is wrong with Evolution and I
have found that the problem is another package.

That is amazing!
:(

#549451#100
Date:
2011-03-27 05:05:21 UTC
From:
To:
I was successful in working around the bug and enabling the operation of
setting Evolution online by editing
/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf, and setting managed=true
(instead of false) in the [ifupdown] section.
I am attaching the whole /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf file.

The NetworkManager version which I use is:
ii  network-manager                               0.8.1-6+squeeze1                  network management framework daemon
ii  network-manager-gnome                         0.8.1-2                           network management framework (GNOME frontend)

#549451#105
Date:
2012-03-01 14:30:06 UTC
From:
To:
--- Please enter the report below this line. ---
Please find here an other workaround.

I can not set managed=true because otherwise many other services will not work and I can not afford this. Indeed I'm using NFS and this just hangs the machine when playing with NM.
So the solution is to get rid of NM. However as evolution depends on it, this is not possible.
However, a workaround of this exists: just get rid of /etc/init.d/network-manager. This will ensure that the dependency is satisfied, but NM does not start upons system startup.
Now, what is miraculous, is that evolution does not care and will start, guess how? ONLINE!

So, dear maintainer, CAN YOU PLEASE GET RID OF DEPENDENCY ON NM? Can you please just recommend NM, this is a task YOU CAN DO IT!

Thanks and Best Regards,

Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  500 testing         apt-cache.sequans.com
  500 sequans         apt-cache.sequans.com
--- Package information. ---
Depends                             (Version) | Installed
=============================================-+-==================
libatk1.0-0                       (>= 1.12.4) | 2.2.0-2
libc6                                (>= 2.7) | 2.13-26
libcairo-gobject2                 (>= 1.10.0) | 1.10.2-6.2
libcairo2                           (>= 1.10) | 1.10.2-6.2
libcamel-1.2-29                      (>= 3.2) | 3.2.2-1
libcamel-1.2-29                      (<< 3.3) | 3.2.2-1
libcanberra-gtk3-0                  (>= 0.25) | 0.28-3
libcanberra0                         (>= 0.2) | 0.28-3
libclutter-1.0-0                   (>= 1.0.0) | 1.8.4-1
libclutter-gtk-1.0-0              (>= 0.91.8) | 1.0.4-1
libcogl-pango0                     (>= 1.7.4) | 1.8.2-1
libcogl5                           (>= 1.7.4) | 1.8.2-1
libdrm2                            (>= 2.3.1) | 2.4.30-1
libebackend-1.2-1                  (>= 3.2.2) | 3.2.2-1
libebook-1.2-12                    (>= 3.2.2) | 3.2.2-1
libecal-1.2-10                     (>= 3.2.2) | 3.2.2-1
libedataserver-1.2-15              (>= 3.2.2) | 3.2.2-1
libedataserverui-3.0-1             (>= 3.2.2) | 3.2.2-1
libenchant1c2a                       (>= 1.6) | 1.6.0-7
libevolution                         (>= 3.2) | 3.2.2-1
libevolution                         (<< 3.3) | 3.2.2-1
libfontconfig1                     (>= 2.8.0) | 2.8.0-3.1
libfreetype6                       (>= 2.2.1) | 2.4.8-1
libgail-3-0                        (>= 3.0.0) | 3.2.3-1
libgconf2-4                       (>= 2.31.1) | 2.32.4-1
libgdata13                        (>= 0.10.1) | 0.10.1-2
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0                (>= 2.22.0) | 2.24.1-1
libgl1-mesa-glx                               | 7.11.2-1
 OR libgl1                                    |
libglib2.0-0                      (>= 2.30.0) | 2.30.2-6
libgnome-desktop-3-2               (>= 3.2.0) | 3.2.1-3
libgtk-3-0                         (>= 3.0.2) | 3.2.3-1
libgtkhtml-4.0-0                     (>= 4.2) | 4.2.2-1
libgtkhtml-4.0-0                     (<< 4.3) | 4.2.2-1
libgtkhtml-editor-4.0-0              (>= 4.2) | 4.2.2-1
libgtkhtml-editor-4.0-0              (<< 4.3) | 4.2.2-1
libgweather-3-0                    (>= 3.0.0) | 3.2.1-1
libical0                            (>= 0.42) | 0.44-3
libjson-glib-1.0-0                (>= 0.12.0) | 0.14.2-1
libmx-1.0-2                        (>= 1.2.0) | 1.4.1-1
libnotify4                         (>= 0.7.0) | 0.7.4-1
libnspr4-0d                     (>= 1.8.0.10) | 4.9~beta5-2
libnss3-1d                  (>= 3.12.0~1.9b1) | 3.13.1.with.ckbi.1.88-1
libpango1.0-0                     (>= 1.14.0) | 1.29.4-2
libsoup-gnome2.4-1                (>= 2.31.2) | 2.34.3-1
libsoup2.4-1                      (>= 2.32.2) | 2.34.3-1
libsqlite3-0                       (>= 3.5.9) | 3.7.10-1
libx11-6                                      | 2:1.4.4-4
libxcomposite1                   (>= 1:0.3-1) | 1:0.4.3-2
libxdamage1                        (>= 1:1.1) | 1:1.1.3-2
libxext6                                      | 2:1.3.0-3
libxfixes3                                    | 1:5.0-4
libxi6                                        | 2:1.4.5-1
libxml2                            (>= 2.7.4) | 2.7.8.dfsg-7
gconf2                          (>= 2.28.1-2) | 2.32.4-1
evolution-common                  (= 3.2.2-1) | 3.2.2-1
evolution-data-server                (>= 3.2) | 3.2.2-1
evolution-data-server                (<< 3.3) | 3.2.2-1
gnome-icon-theme                (>= 2.30.2.1) | 3.2.1.2-1
dbus                                          | 1.4.18-1
psmisc                                        | 22.15-2


Recommends             (Version) | Installed
================================-+-===========
evolution-plugins                | 3.2.2-1
evolution-webcal                 | 2.32.0-2+b1
yelp                             | 3.2.1+dfsg-1+b1
bogofilter                       |
 OR spamassassin                 | 3.3.2-2


Suggests                            (Version) | Installed
=============================================-+-===========
evolution-exchange                            | 3.2.1-2
evolution-dbg                                 | 3.2.2-1
evolution-plugins-experimental                |
gnupg                                         | 1.4.11-3
network-manager                               | 0.9.2.0-2

#549451#116
Date:
2016-02-16 05:50:03 UTC
From:
To:
There are two work arounds to this that I can think of.

One is to start evolution with the "--force-online" option:

  evolution --force-online

Another on is to use Network Manager's "Edit Connections" option to
create a bridge.  Network Manager will then think there always is a
network connection.