Troubleshooting Zoe

General Issues

Enable Debugging

Enable Zoe debugging. From the command line type:
java -jar zoe.jar debug

if Zoe just doesn't work

If Zoe is not working properly on you system and you are unable to diagnose the problem, try creating a fresh install to check the basics. see Test Vanilla Installation.

Importing and Memory

Importing your mail can require more than the usual amount of
memory from the Java virtual machine. If Zoe exits with an out
of memory error, try starting it again like this:
java -Xms512m -Xmx1024m -jar zoe.jar

Mail Issues

If you are unable to determine the cause of the problem with Zoe's debug information, you can enable Java Mail's debug output for even more info about what's going on.

enable Java Mail Debugging

  1. Create a plain text file in %ZOE%/Library/SZ/Configurations/Default/ named alt.dev.szmail.SZProvider.properties
  2. insert the following content: debug.mail.session=true

Recover Data from a Corrupt Installation

If you cannot even run a rebuild this indicates that the 'bootstrap' data are gone also... not a good thing. The best thing to do is to create a fresh installation, move your old emails over and run a rebuild.

Follow this proceedure if you are unable to start Zoe or rebuild the datastore.
  1. Rename the 'SZ' directory under '%ZOE%/Library/' to 'SZ.hold'. This directory is where all your messages are stored.
  2. Run the app and create a new account. Let it fetch one or two messages to create the proper structures for your messages.
  3. Shutdown the app
  4. There should be a new 'SZ' directory. You will need to copy all the messages under 'SZ.hold' to the new 'SZ' directory. Messages are stored in a timeline structure under the 'Mails' directory. Copy all the years directories (i.e. '2002', '2003', etc) under 'SZ.hold/Mails/<long hex name>/' to the new location under 'SZ/Mails/<long hex name>/'. Only copy the year directories, not the directory with the long hexadecimal name.
  5. Once everything is copied over, run a rebuild. (see System Configuration/Command Line Options for help)
reference: [Zoe-general]


Just Stops Getting IMAP Mail

Zoe just stopped importing IMAP mail for me last week. I guessed that the issue might be that my IMAP mailbox was too full, and I moved a lot of messages out of my inbox to an archive folder. Things started working normally again immediately. FYI. --Ed Heil

How, or whether this could work, seems to be at question in the following thread (http://article.gmane.org/gmane.mail.zoe.general/3538) between R. and a Zoe User about IMAP stopping working. One interpretation might be that what Ed did didn't actually fix the problem of the INBOX not getting download , but instead, Zoe began to download the messages from the archived folder, now somehow included in the mail's download "path" (or, more precisely, as a mailbox that is downloaded). Just a thought. Following the instructions in the thread, above, helped me track down and fix problems about downloading from the INBOX. -Chris


Emails get imported into Library/SZ/Mails but items stay stuck in Library/SZ/Queues

For some reason I had some zero-length files in the queue. When I removed these it unblocked and Zoe started indexing and clearing the queue (or at least it seemed that's what triggered the unblocking). -- Adam Spiers