Bug 175516

Summary:	mail-client/evolution - contacts displays \n newline in Contacts
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Roger <rogerx.oss>
Component:	Current packages	Assignee:	GNOME Office (OBSOLETE) <gnome-office+disabled>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	liquidx
Priority:	High
Version:	2006.1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
URL:	http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=356176 http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=416664
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Roger 2007-04-22 02:28:02 UTC

Within some of my Contacts of Evolution, newline characters are displayed randomly and are persistent after deletion, they reappear randomly.



Reproducible: Always




This is a known bug with Evolution contacts and has not been fixed even as of:
gnome-extra/evolution-data-server-1.10.1

Here's is my official and continuing bug report with Gnome Evolution:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=416664

A proposed patch was issued for this bugzilla report but on another bug file here:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=356176

To date from what i just heard on my bug report, it has yet to be officially applied, but a Debian developer has applied the patch locally to the debian tree for Evolution.

Comment 1 Peter Volkov (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2007-08-31 08:55:38 UTC

Thank you for report, roger. The bug was fixed upstream. I've backported patch and applied to evolution-data-server-1.10.2-r1. Fixed.

Comment 2 Roger 2007-09-01 08:15:25 UTC

Great!  I would have done more, but time only permits me todo so much programming ;-)

(Would be great if Gentoo had a 24/7 voting system for volunteers/developers for Gentoo.  You have my vote for posting this long overdue puppy. ;-)

Comment 3 Roger 2007-09-09 03:42:28 UTC

Ok.  For historical documentation of this bug... I fixed a few more of my contacts acquiring the nagging "\n" character sets within my contacts.

You might also want to note I found these character sets, not only within the "Comment" field, but in also fields of the vcard format.

To fix:

1) Export the contact(s) to vcard file.  (Right click and choose Export.)

2) Open the VCard with GVim and choose "Edit > Find/Replace".

3a) Replace all occurrences of "\n" with spaces:  Specify for Find "\\n" and Replace "   " (five spaces or just one or two spaces designating places you've had a carriage return).

3b) This time, just find & replace back slashes: Find "\\" and Replace "    " (five spaces or just one or two spaces).

4) Save the file and import the vcard back using Evolution > File > Import.

I still notice Evolution spawning the following warnings, but can find no back slashes or "\n" character sets anymore:

(evolution-2.12:12606): libebook-WARNING **: invalid escape, passing it through
(evolution-2.12:12606): libebook-WARNING **: invalid escape, passing it through

But so far, I am "\n" free.  I'm hoping time will tell what invalid escape characters are embedded and which contacts they're in.  I think these "invalid escapes are causing a slight delay displaying the contacts.