Why Doesn't Evolution Filter Spam?

[Rick Bilonick]

On Sun, 2008-03-02 at 12:20 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> Take a look at Preferences->Junk Filter. You should see a confirmation
> of which filter you are using, and a line stating that the executable
> exists. If it doesn't say that, there is a fix: there was a whole thread
> on <evolution-list at gnome.org> about this a few weeks ago. It tends to
> bite people who upgraded from earlier Fedora versions. I finally sorted
> it out following a suggestion of <psimth at gnu.org> saying that it's
> actually a Gconf issue. I enlose my reply to his message. 
> 
> poc
> 
> PS I changed from SA to BF last year and have been happy with it. SA
> seemed to have a lot of issues (aside from this one, which isn't in fact
> SA's fault). The Evo people are now canvassing opinions on whether to
> have BF as the default spam filter.
> email message attachment, "Attached message - Re: [Evolution]
> Spamfiltering with evolution - NO LONGER WORKS"
> > -------- Forwarded Message --------
> > From: Patrick O'Callaghan <poc at usb.ve>
> > To: psmith at gnu.org
> > Cc: evolution-list <evolution-list at gnome.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Evolution] Spamfiltering with evolution - NO LONGER
> > WORKS
> > Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:41:10 -0430
> > 
> > On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 21:33 -0500, Paul Smith wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 21:14 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > > > So the problem is somewhere in my Gconf or .evolution. Where do I
> > > > start looking?
> > > 
> > > Aha!  The circle closes!
> > > 
> > > OK, my suspicion is that it's a gconf issue.  I really dislike gconf: I
> > > can't believe after the disaster that is the Windows registry the Gnome
> > > folks thought it was a good idea to emulate it.  Text config files rule!
> > 
> > Totally agree. I can't stand it.
> > 
> > > Anyway.
> > > 
> > > If you don't have a copy already, you need to get gconf-editor.  Fire it
> > > up.  On my Ubuntu box it doesn't install into the menu system (that I
> > > can find); run it from a terminal.
> > > 
> > > Now, open up apps -> evolution -> mail -> junk.  I don't know what it
> > > should look like, but mine says:
> > > 
> > >     check_incoming		<check>
> > >     default_plugin		Bogofilter
> > >     empty_date			0
> > >     empty_on_exit		<not checked>
> > >     empty_on_exit_days		0
> > > 
> > > Underneath that, I have "folders" for bogofilter and sa.  The bogofilter
> > > one says:
> > > 
> > >     unicode			<check>
> > > 
> > > I'm not really sure what might be the problem here though.  What does
> > > yours look like?
> > 
> > Solved! the default_plugin was SpamAssassin, despite the fact that the
> > SA plugin was disabled and the GUI showed BF whenever I clicked on the
> > drop-down list. I edited it by hand to Bogofilter, restarted completely,
> > and it seems to be working (after about 5 seconds testing).
> > 
> > Many thanks for your help. I've no idea how this could have happened as
> > I'm not in the habit of editing Gconf by hand, but obviously something
> > messed with it out of sight.

Evolution preferences has always shown bogofilter available and enabled.
I had even removed spamassassin and it did not help get spam filtering
to work under Fedora 8. (Bogofilter had been enabled under Fedora 6 and
had worked perfectly until I installed Fedora 8 [I installed, not
upgraded from Fedora 6].) I followed Peter Gordon's suggestion and also
marked some mail as "not junk". I also dowloaded and installed
gconf-edit which showed bogofilter enabled - I'm not sure what
spamassassin showed but I unchecked the two boxes. Now, for the first
time bogofilter appears to be working. At least, I haven't noticed any
spam over the last 8 hours.

Now if I could only get the MAPI plugin working with Exchange Server
2007.

Rick B.