libnotify warnings on Debian Buster make app unusable (need to restart)

[shirishag75]

Dear all,

Thank you for maintaining riot-web. I was trying it out on debian-buster and got the following -

$ riot-web
Starting auto update with base URL: https://riot.im/download/desktop/update/
Auto update not supported on this platform

(riot-web:30233): libnotify-WARNING **: 04:14:00.416: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:30233): libnotify-WARNING **: 04:14:25.442: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:30233): libnotify-WARNING **: 04:14:35.268: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:30233): libnotify-WARNING **: 04:15:35.269: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:30233): libnotify-WARNING **: 04:16:00.295: Failed to connect to proxy
^C^C

Could somebody fix this, thank you.

Package: riot-web
Version: 0.17.9
Severity: normal

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental-debug'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_IN, LC_CTYPE=en_IN (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_IN:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages riot-web depends on:
ii  gconf-service     3.2.6-5
ii  gconf2            3.2.6-5
ii  libappindicator1  0.4.92-7
ii  libnotify4        0.7.7-4
ii  libnss3           2:3.41-1
ii  libxss1           1:1.2.3-1
ii  libxtst6          2:1.2.3-1

riot-web recommends no packages.

riot-web suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

[shirishag75]

It's one month and still no resolution. In fact, it has become much more painful to have a conversation since 1.0.1

Subject: libnotify makes it impossible to have a conversation
Package: riot-web
Version: 1.0.1
Severity: normal

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental-debug'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_IN, LC_CTYPE=en_IN (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_IN:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages riot-web depends on:
ii  gconf-service     3.2.6-5
ii  gconf2            3.2.6-5
ii  libappindicator1  0.4.92-7
ii  libnotify4        0.7.7-4
ii  libnss3           2:3.42.1-1
ii  libxss1           1:1.2.3-1
ii  libxtst6          2:1.2.3-1

riot-web recommends no packages.

riot-web suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

[jryans]

Can you explain how it is "painful"? In the first comment, it appeared that you receive some warning in the terminal. Is anything else happening?

[shirishag75]

It's painful because I can't use riot-web after that. I have to shut down the app. Re-start it , talk for couple of minutes , again get the error and can no longer talk. The cycle just goes on repeating :(

[jryans]

Do you know of a live install image for that Debian release? I found https://www.debian.org/CD/live/, but it seems to only have the stable release.

[shirishag75]

We do have weekly testing live iso's but I couldn't tell if they are any good or not. See https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/

there is also https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/buster_di_alpha5+nonfree/amd64/iso-cd/firmware-buster-DI-alpha5-amd64-netinst.iso

There is an errata published, please look into that https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata before going ahead.

There are also some notes you may find handy as well as far as D-I itself is concerned. https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2019/20190202

Some notes -

1. The weekly-build is more recent than alpha 5 but no guarantees . I have given for 64-bit machines, if you are looking for 32-bit then just replace amd64 with i386 and you should be able to use the same.

2. The second one I have shared is just the netinstall . If you want or have the bandwidth you could also look at https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/buster_di_alpha5+nonfree/amd64/iso-dvd/firmware-buster-DI-alpha5-amd64-DVD-1.iso

Let me know if you get into any issues with either. There are bit-torrent releases as well as you could either use wget or a bittorrent client or some sort of download manager if you on some non-linux platform.

https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/buster_di_alpha5+nonfree/amd64/ this gives you all the options.

[shirishag75]

This has got fixed with the newest release i.e. riot-web 1.0.3 -

$ apt-cache policy riot-web
riot-web:
  Installed: 1.0.3
  Candidate: 1.0.3
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.3 500
        500 https://riot.im/packages/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Although have no clue where the react-sdk repository is located to see the full changelog.

[shirishag75]

I thought it got fixed but no, it's still there :(

$ riot-web
Starting auto update with base URL: https://riot.im/download/desktop/update/
Auto update not supported on this platform

(riot-web:22338): libnotify-WARNING **: 10:55:50.547: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:22338): libnotify-WARNING **: 10:56:15.553: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:22338): libnotify-WARNING **: 10:56:25.547: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:22338): libnotify-WARNING **: 10:58:47.974: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:22338): libnotify-WARNING **: 10:59:12.981: Failed to connect to proxy

(riot-web:22338): libnotify-WARNING **: 10:59:22.554: Failed to connect to proxy

[jryans]

Looks like the list in https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/ has different variants for Gnome, KDE, etc. Which one would be closest to what you are using?

[shirishag75]

You could either use mate or use lxqt . I interchangeably use both the desktops. The behaviour I shared is the same on both the same desktops.

[jryans]

I tried testing with debian-live-testing-amd64-mate+nonfree.iso. Riot starts successfully, and I don't receive any error like you are encountering.

Can you think of any other steps to reproduce the issue?

[shirishag75]

I am not saying it doesn't start. I am saying it starts giving those libnotify warnings and then I cannot continue the interaction. I have to use CTRL+C because the normal stop doesn't work. I tried to see why I need libnotify4 and it says -

$ aptitude why libnotify4
i   riot-web Depends libnotify4

Does this shed any more light ?

If need I could use strace but it eats space like anything. Anything I can do to lessen the noise would be good. Any guidance on this regard may be helpful.

[jryans]

I did not receive any warnings from libnotify when trying to duplicate your setup, so for the moment it seems unclear if this is an issue for all debian buster users, or something specific to your systems.

The libnotify dependency comes from Electron's notification APIs.

It seems like similar issues have been opened for at least other Electron-based apps:

https://github.com/meetfranz/franz/issues/592

This suggests to me that it's an issue either in Electron or in the libnotify supplied by the distribution. I don't believe there's much that Riot can do about this, but please let us know if there is.

[shirishag75]

at least for the moment, with the new release the issue has stopped .

@jryans the only fix they seemed to have done in this release is at #9205 from what I could gather. Maybe that has something to with it.

/me clueless.

Update - I just had to say it and it again dropped libnotify warning and became unresponsive, guess this needs to be fixed by either libnotify or electron or both :(

[se17p]

I have this problem on my Debian testing (mate) since few months. When receiving a message it freezes completely for about 90 seconds. During it there are messages in log:

(element-desktop:53135): libnotify-WARNING **: 14:35:43.246: Failed to connect to proxy

(element-desktop:53135): libnotify-WARNING **: 14:36:08.270: Failed to connect to proxy

(element-desktop:53135): libnotify-WARNING **: 14:36:18.596: Failed to connect to proxy
[53135:0115/143643.618753:ERROR:libnotify_notification.cc(51)] notify_notification_show: domain=322 code=24 message="Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.Notifications: Timeout was reached"

or

(element-desktop:53135): libnotify-WARNING **: 14:29:55.597: Failed to connect to proxy

(element-desktop:53135): libnotify-WARNING **: 14:30:20.622: Failed to connect to proxy

(element-desktop:53135): libnotify-WARNING **: 14:30:45.646: Failed to connect to proxy
[53135:0115/143055.597530:ERROR:libnotify_notification.cc(51)] notify_notification_show: domain=205 code=25 message="Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.Notifications: Process org.freedesktop.Notifications exited with status 1"

It happens very often and makes it really hard to chat. Running the app with --no-proxy-server makes no difference. Maybe it is related to message notifications - did not see any for a while.

[se17p]

I just tested and disabling "desktop notifications for this sessions" stops freezing (also with audible notifications enabled).

[se17p]

As a side note my system also has problems with notifications from some other apps (e.g. network manager) which may have been caused by trying KDE/wayland.

IMO moving notifications to another thread would be a good idea, because now it looks like it causes also some internal problems:

[53135:0115/150826.622895:ERROR:libnotify_notification.cc(51)] notify_notification_show: domain=322 code=24 message="Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.Notifications: Timeout was reached"
[53135:0115/150851.662512:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "/sync error %s ConnectionError: request failed: ETIMEDOUT", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/150851.662571:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "ConnectionError: request failed: ETIMEDOUT", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/150851.662620:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Number of consecutive failed sync requests: 1", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/150851.662665:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Starting keep-alive", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/150851.662714:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "MatrixClient sync state => %s RECONNECTING", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/150856.457561:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Presence: %s unavailable", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151009.899042:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Presence: %s online", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151011.279134:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Starting load of AsyncWrapper for modal", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151011.305435:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Returning cached capabilities", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151017.439477:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "/sync error %s ConnectionError: request failed: ETIMEDOUT", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151017.439563:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "ConnectionError: request failed: ETIMEDOUT", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151017.439627:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Number of consecutive failed sync requests: 2", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151017.439667:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "Starting keep-alive", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151017.443061:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "MatrixClient sync state => %s RECONNECTING", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)
[53135:0115/151025.497093:INFO:CONSOLE(2)] "MatrixClient sync state => %s SYNCING", source: vector://vector/webapp/bundles/*****/vendors~init.js (2)

[jryans]

Unfortunately, Element itself can't really do anything about how libnotify is used. It's managed by Electron / Chromium.

[shirishag75]

@jryans do you know if the specific issue has been relayed to the libnotify maintainers. If yes, is there some bug/ticket we could look into and associate with. Some way to track it. After a bit of search, did find a bunch of tickets and where the release can be tracked but no sure way to figure things out.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libnotify

Also see https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libnotify/-/issues

[jryans]

I do not know anything more about this topic than what's contained in this issue already.

[MadLittleMods]

@shirishag75 @se17p Is this still reproducible?

[MadLittleMods]

Closing in favor of element-hq/element-desktop#856 which looks like to be a new report of this