kmail no longer finds account info

[Michael Bona <mbona@bigfoot.com>]

Hi, 

I am using Debian/Woody with the semi-official KDE3 packages. KDE version is
3.2.0, KMail is version 1.6.

Since this Friday, KMail opens and shows all mail previously received but
cannot fetch or send mail since it seems to have lost all the account
infos.

I looked in .kde/share/apps/kmail and the files with the account info seem
to be there but kmail either does not find them or does not read them or
they are corrupt. Kmail shows no error message when starting up.

When I try to download mail, no account names are shown, pressing the button
only shows an empty drop-down.

Any help appreciated
Michael