Akonadi crashes on new installation

libewa · 2025-12-25 09:19:57

I have installed Arch using `archinstall` with KDE. After booting into my (working ) installation, I installed the other KDE applications using `pacman -Syu kde-applications`.
When launching KMail, however, it complained that "a required service [was] not running". After a bit of online searching, I also manually installed `akonadi`. Still, it did not work. After some more searching, I manually tried to start akonadi using `akonadictl start`. That command exited with an error.

[linus@stickerbox ~]$ akonadictl start --verbose
Detected locale "C" with character encoding "ANSI_X3.4-1968", which is not UTF-8.
Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
for more information.
org.kde.pim.akonadictl: Starting Akonadi Server...
Detected locale "C" with character encoding "ANSI_X3.4-1968", which is not UTF-8.
Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
for more information.
org.kde.pim.akonadictl:    done.
[linus@stickerbox ~]$ Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
qt.qpa.services: Failed to register with host portal QDBusError("org.freedesktop.portal.Error.Failed", "Could not register app ID: App info not found for 'org.kde.akonadi_control'")
Detected locale "C" with character encoding "ANSI_X3.4-1968", which is not UTF-8.
Qt depends on a UTF-8 locale, and has switched to "C.UTF-8" instead.
If this causes problems, reconfigure your locale. See the locale(1) manual
for more information.
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Starting up the Akonadi Server...
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Found mysql_install_db:  "/usr/bin/mariadb-install-db"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Found mysqlcheck:  "/usr/bin/mariadb-check"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Found mysql_upgrade:  "/usr/bin/mariadb-upgrade"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Using mysqld: "/usr/bin/mariadb"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver:  globalConfig :  "/etc/xdg//akonadi/mysql-global.conf"  localConfig :  ""  actualConfig :  "/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Failed to detect mysqld version!
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: "mysqld" reports version 0.0.0 (Oracle MySQL)
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Executing: "/usr/bin/mariadb" "--defaults-file=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf --datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/ --socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket --pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: database server stopped unexpectedly
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Database process exited unexpectedly during initial connection!
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: executable: "/usr/bin/mariadb"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: arguments: QList("--defaults-file=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf", "--datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/", "--socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket", "--pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid")
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stdout: ""
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stderr: "/usr/bin/mariadb: unknown variable 'datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/'\n/usr/bin/mariadb: unknown variable 'pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid'\n"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: exit code: 7
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: process error: "Unbekannter Fehler"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: See "/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/mysql.err" for more details
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: terminating connection threads
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: terminating service threads
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stopping db process
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Shutting down AkonadiServer...
org.kde.pim.akonadicontrol: Application '/usr/bin/akonadiserver' exited normally...

(My shell prompt is in between some of the logs, so at least the `start` command returned)

I searched for this on the web some more, but only found posts talking about different MariaDB errors, not this "unknown variable".

Edit: searching the journal for akonadi just gives the same output.

Last edited by libewa (2025-12-25 09:21:19)

arojas · 2025-12-25 11:17:29

org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: "mysqld" reports version 0.0.0 (Oracle MySQL)
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Executing: "/usr/bin/mariadb" "--defaults-file=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf --datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/ --socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket --pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid"

You are mixing up Oracle MySQL and MariaDB components. That doesn't sound like a good idea.

libewa · 2025-12-25 11:50:24

Hm. Might that be because I have Java installed? I didn't configure anything specially. Do I just install MariaDB or do I have to do more?

seth · 2025-12-25 13:49:36

pacman -Qo mysqld

libewa · 2025-12-25 19:53:00

╭─linus@stickerbox ~ 
╰─$ LC_ALL=en_US pacman -Qo mysqld
/usr/bin/mysqld is owned by mariadb 12.1.2-1

seth · 2025-12-25 20:23:57

type -a mysqld
pacman -Qikk mariadb
/usr/bin/mariadb --version
mysqld --version

libewa · 2025-12-25 20:50:50

╭─linus@stickerbox ~ 
╰─$ export LC_ALL=en_US
╭─linus@stickerbox ~ 
╰─$ type -a mysqld     
mysqld is /usr/bin/mysqld
╭─linus@stickerbox ~ 
╰─$ pacman -Qikk mariadb
Name            : mariadb
Version         : 12.1.2-1
Description     : Fast SQL database server, derived from MySQL
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://mariadb.org/
Licenses        : GPL-2.0-only
Groups          : None
Provides        : mariadb-server=12.1.2  mysql=12.1.2
Depends On      : mariadb-clients=12.1.2  bzip2  libbz2.so=1.0-64  coreutils  libxml2
                  libxml2.so=16-64  lz4  liblz4.so=1-64  systemd-libs  libsystemd.so=0-64  zstd
                  libzstd.so=1-64
Optional Deps   : cracklib: for cracklib plugin
                  curl: for ha_s3 plugin [installed]
                  galera: for MariaDB cluster with Galera WSREP
                  judy: for Open Query GRAPH (OQGraph) computation engine
                  perl-dbd-mariadb: for mariadb-hotcopy, mariadb-convert-table-format and
                  mariadb-setpermission
                  python-mysqlclient: for myrocks_hotbackup
                  xz: lzma provider [installed]
Required By     : akonadi
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : mysql
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 195.72 MiB
Packager        : Christian Hesse <eworm@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Tue Nov 18 16:43:26 2025
Install Date    : Wed Dec 24 22:29:12 2025
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : Yes
Validated By    : Signature

mariadb: 492 total files, 0 altered files
╭─linus@stickerbox ~ 
╰─$ /usr/bin/mariadb --version    
/usr/bin/mariadb from 12.1.2-MariaDB, client 15.2 for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1
╭─linus@stickerbox ~ 
╰─$ mysqld --version
mysqld: Deprecated program name. It will be removed in a future release, use '/usr/bin/mariadbd' instead
mysqld  Ver 12.1.2-MariaDB for Linux on x86_64 (Arch Linux)

seth · 2025-12-25 20:56:15

So where's akonadi getting the oracle version from?

cat /home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf

libewa · 2025-12-25 21:11:45

.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf

#
# Global Akonadi MySQL server settings,
# These settings can be adjusted using $HOME/.config/akonadi/mysql-local.conf
#
# Based on advice by Kris Köhntopp <kris@mysql.com>
#
[mysqld]

# strict query parsing/interpretation
# TODO: make Akonadi work with those settings enabled
# sql_mode=strict_trans_tables,strict_all_tables,strict_error_for_division_by_zero,no_auto_create_user,no_auto_value_on_zero,no_engine_substitution,no_zero_date,no_zero_in_date,only_full_group_by,pipes_as_concat
# sql_mode=strict_trans_tables

# DEBUGGING:
# log all queries, useful for debugging but generates an enormous amount of data
# log=mysql.full
# log queries slower than n seconds, log file name relative to datadir (for debugging only)
# log_slow_queries=mysql.slow
# long_query_time=1
# log queries not using indices, debug only, disable for production use
# log_queries_not_using_indexes=1
#
# measure database size and adjust innodb_buffer_pool_size
# SELECT sum(data_length) as bla, sum(index_length) as blub FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema not in ("mysql", "information_schema");

# NOTES:
# Keep Innob_log_waits and keep Innodb_buffer_pool_wait_free small (see show global status like "inno%", show global variables)

#expire_logs_days=3

#sync_bin_log=0

# Use UTF-8 encoding for tables
character_set_server=utf8
collation_server=utf8_general_ci

# use InnoDB for transactions and better crash recovery
default_storage_engine=innodb

# memory buffer InnoDB uses to cache data and indexes of its tables (default:128M)
# Larger values means less I/O
innodb_buffer_pool_size=128M

# Create a .ibd file for each table (default:0)
innodb_file_per_table=1

# Write out the log buffer to the log file at each commit (default:1)
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=2

# Buffer size used to write to the log files on disk (default:1M for builtin, 8M for plugin)
# larger values means less I/O
innodb_log_buffer_size=1M

# Size of each log file in a log group (default:5M) larger means less I/O but more time for recovery.
innodb_log_file_size=64M

# # error log file name, relative to datadir (default:hostname.err)
log_error=mysql.err

# print warnings and connection errors (default:1)
loose_log_warnings=2

# Convert table named to lowercase
lower_case_table_names=1

# Maximum size of one packet or any generated/intermediate string. (default:1M)
max_allowed_packet=32M

# Maximum simultaneous connections allowed (default:100)
max_connections=256

# The two options below make no sense with prepared statements and/or transactions
# (make sense when having the same query multiple times)

# Memory allocated for caching query results (default:0 (disabled))
loose_query_cache_size=0

# Do not cache results (default:1)
loose_query_cache_type=0

# Do not use the privileges mechanisms
skip_grant_tables

# Do not listen for TCP/IP connections at all
skip_networking

# The number of open tables for all threads. (default:64)
table_open_cache=200

# How many threads the server should cache for reuse (default:0)
thread_cache_size=3

# wait 365d before dropping the DB connection (default:8h)
wait_timeout=31536000

# We use InnoDB, so don't let MyISAM eat up memory
key_buffer_size=16K

[client]
default-character-set=utf8

.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc (was mentioned in another post)

[%General]
Driver=QMYSQL

[QMYSQL]
DataDir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data
Host=
Name=akonadi
Options="UNIX_SOCKET=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket"
ServerPath=/usr/bin/mariadb
StartServer=true

[QPSQL]
Host=/run/user/1000/akonadi
InitDbPath=
Name=akonadi
Options=
PgData=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data
ServerPath=
StartServer=true

seth · 2025-12-25 21:50:16

Assuming it's not the mariadb installation

org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Executing: "/usr/bin/mariadb" "--defaults-file=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf --datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/ --socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket --pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: database server stopped unexpectedly
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Database process exited unexpectedly during initial connection!
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: executable: "/usr/bin/mariadb"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: arguments: QList("--defaults-file=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf", "--datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/", "--socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket", "--pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid")
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stdout: ""
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: stderr: "/usr/bin/mariadb: unknown variable 'datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/'\n/usr/bin/mariadb: unknown variable 'pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid'\n"
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: exit code: 7
org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: process error: "Unbekannter Fehler"

org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: arguments: QList("--defaults-file=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf", "--datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/", "--socket=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.socket", "--pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid")

somehow ends up as

/usr/bin/mariadb: unknown variable 'datadir=/home/linus/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/'
/usr/bin/mariadb: unknown variable 'pid-file=/run/user/1000/akonadi/mysql.pid'

Edit: also https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comm … l_crashes/

=> https://discuss.cachyos.org/t/kde-plasm … rt/19977/6 suggests switching to qsqlite, no idea whether that's a mandatory switch ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last edited by seth (2025-12-25 21:52:01)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-12-25 09:19:57

Akonadi crashes on new installation

#2 2025-12-25 11:17:29

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#3 2025-12-25 11:50:24

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#4 2025-12-25 13:49:36

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#5 2025-12-25 19:53:00

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#6 2025-12-25 20:23:57

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#7 2025-12-25 20:50:50

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#8 2025-12-25 20:56:15

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#9 2025-12-25 21:11:45

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

#10 2025-12-25 21:50:16

Re: Akonadi crashes on new installation

Board footer