zeitgeist-related ERROR:dbus.proxies error on runtime

[Liviu Andronic]

I'm trying to get catfish 4.0.2 packaged on my PPA for Precise [1] (using the 'debian' control dir from Quantal), but I'm hitting trouble. Although the compilation and installation work fine, when I try to run it I get this:
liv@liv-laptop:~$ catfish
ERROR:dbus.proxies:Introspect error on org.gnome.zeitgeist.Engine:/org/gnome/zeitgeist/log/activity: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process /usr/bin/zeitgeist-daemon exited with status 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/catfish/catfish.py", line 39, in <module>
    iface = ZeitgeistDBusInterface()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/zeitgeist/client.py", line 270, in __init__
    self.INTERFACE_NAME, self.OBJECT_PATH, reconnect)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/zeitgeist/client.py", line 180, in __init__
    self._load_introspection_data()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/zeitgeist/client.py", line 172, in _load_introspection_data
    dbus_interface='org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable'))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 70, in __call__
    return self._proxy_method(*args, **keywords)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 145, in __call__
    **keywords)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 651, in call_blocking
    message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process /usr/bin/zeitgeist-daemon exited with status 1

The strange part is that when I follow the regular compilation instructions, "./configure; make", and then run catfish.py without installing, it works as expected. Any ideas what is going on?

[1] https://launchpad.net/~landronimirc/+archive/experimental

[Liviu Andronic (landronimirc)]

To rectify the report above, actually in both cases 'catfish' fails to run as user, but runs fine as root. So something must be wrong with the python configuration in user, correct?

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Hello Liviu,

It might be a problem with catfish in your profile. Could you try creating and using a new user to see what happens?

Thanks!

[Liviu Andronic (landronimirc)]

Hello

On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 12:05 AM, Sean Davis <email address hidden> wrote:
> It might be a problem with catfish in your profile. Could you try
> creating and using a new user to see what happens?
>
Yes, it does load as expected when using a different user. So
something must be wrong with my profile. But how do I hunt this down?
I couldn't find any catfish related config files in Home.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Catfish doesn't have any configuration files. It looks like there might be something wrong with zeitgeist in your profile. I can add an exception to catfish to not fail when it encounters a zeitgeist-related crash.

[Liviu Andronic (landronimirc)]

You are right, something was wrong with 'user'. But I managed to get it working simply by removing the ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/activity.sqlite file. Either way, it seems sensible to me that catfish shouldn't fail when zeitgeist fails (or at least it should display some useful message).

Thanks!

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

With the changes I am making in the experimental branch, catfish should no longer fail when zeitgeist fails.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

This should now be fixed in Catfish 0.6.0

Please let me know if there are additional concerns.

Thanks!