I'm also having this problem after a fresh install of Debian Wheezy. My kmail is broken and my akonadi is crashing.
It seems Akonadi, by default is trying to use MySQL even though by default, the distribution installs akonadi-backend-sqlite, and by default, mysql isn't installed. So, by default, Akonadi crashes and applications that depend on it isn't usable at all. Further, there is no instructions during installation that say you need to configure the package for it to work.. It just simply crashes. IMO, Akonadi is one of those background services that should just be pre-configured to work upon automated installation, as when it doesn't, other apps you install won't work and it's really not clear why. Is there any possibility at all that the packaging for Akonadi can, by default, use the sqllite backend? As that is what the package manager installs by default for Akonadi when pulling in all of KDE. If necessary, I don't think it would be unreasonable to "recommend" the SQL-Lite backend to make sure that it gets installed with Akonadi and in addition to that make sure Akonadi is, by default, configured to use SQLLite. That seems to be the easiest and minimal configuration needed to get up and running.. When you start pulling in mysql, things start getting complicated as even mysql won't work unless you configure usernames and passwords and such. I'm a strong advocate of "it just works" out of the box... Akonadi has been broken on my PC for I don't even know how long and only recently have I had the time to investigate why my apps like KMail aren't working.
