kmail weirdness

hi, everybody . . . so i'm using tde 14.0.5 atop ubuntu 18.04. all was tickety boo until yesterday, when kmail would no longer connect and download my mail after due course it says the connection to the server unexpectedly closed. after fiddling with this for awhile, i decided it might be useful to start kmail from the cl and see what it had to say. it was this: [TDE NM Backend ERROR] [/build/buildd/tdelibs-trinity-14.0.5/tdecore/tdehw/networkbackends/network-manager/network-manager.cpp:1707] Attempting to access the network-manager VPN service returned: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.VPN.Plugin was not provided by any .service files dep@dep-desktop:~$ WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 1) suspended. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 2) suspended. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 3) suspended. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 4) suspended. Weaver dtor: destroying inventory. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 1) destroyed. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 2) destroyed. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 3) destroyed. WeaverThreadLogger: thread (ID: 4) destroyed. Weaver dtor: done i haven't the foggiest notion what any of this means and, more important, i have no idea how to fix it. anyone here ever cncounter this? anyone know how i can fix it? thanks. dep Sent with ProtonMail. Because privacy matters.