Timeline doesn't refresh

[j0sh]

After a while I can't refresh the timeline. Try to click on refresh but nothing happens.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: friends 0.1.3daily13.04.17.1~13.04-0ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-19-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug. Unfortunately, I'm going to need some more information to be able to solve the problem. Please open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and then run this command:

    gsettings set com.canonical.friends debug true

Then, make sure friends is closed like this:

    killall friends-service
    killall friends-dispatcher
    killall friends-app

Then, start friends-app again, and try to reproduce the issue. Once you notice that it is no longer able to refresh, please attach the file ~/.cache/friends/friends.log to this bug report.

Thanks!

[j0sh (josh-pixael)]

Hi
I ran all those commands then started the app again and got my updates...
I guess I fixed the issue.
Still not a normal behaviour anyway ;-)

Thanks.

[Yinnus McFlannigan (mistersmith1978)]

i have the same issue. ran the commands mentioned but when i ran killall friends-dispatcher it told me "no process found".

regardless. restarted the app and still no updates. only shows stuff from 6 hours ago.

here is my friends.log report

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Yes, it's normal that friends-dispatcher does not run at all times (it is only invoked periodically, as needed).

I see you attached a friends.log, but now it's deleted? I will need to see that if I'm going to be able to help solve this problem. Thanks.

[Lars (elpaisverdes)]

Yes. it does not refresh now for three days :-(
Help !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Please follow the instructions in comment #1. I will need you to provide that log file in order to help you.

[Валера (lapotinval)]

The program also does not update the timeline.

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Валера, please run this command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install friends-facebook friends-twitter

I'm not sure why you are missing those but once they are installed friends will be able to get those updates.

[Валера (lapotinval)]

Install, but:

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Could not aquire name means that it's already running. Also, you don't need to run friends-service after installing those packages, it should pick them up automatically. So just run friends-app and you should see it all working now.

[Валера (lapotinval)]

Oh, I love the new distribution would shortcomings, solved the problem this way:
1) Through the terminal completely removed Friends (sudo apt-get purge friends *)
2) Re-install the whole package Frends (sudo apt-get install friends *)
3) Then I got the error at startup (segmentation fault (core dump is made))
4) Remove account from the Ubuntu online accounts and re-logged
Immediately Friends earned! Thank you all for your help.

[Yinnus McFlannigan (mistersmith1978)]

Hello again. i finally got it working but after a reinstall of Ubuntu it will NOT update anything. just a blank screen. i can make posts but that's it.

here is my log.

any ideas???

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Well, at first it says "Unsupported protocol: facebook", which indicates that you're missing the friends-facebook package. But then later in the log it looks pretty clear that it started working, just that you're not getting any new messages.

Most likely the logic that stops us from redownloading old messages got a bit confused at some point along the way and won't download any of your old messages. I expect that you should actually start seeing messages show up as they get posted to your facebook, but if you want to redownload older messages as well, you should delete the file ~/.cache/friends/facebook_ids.json and then the next time friends runs, it'll redownload your last 50 or so messages for the feed.

[Yinnus McFlannigan (mistersmith1978)]

thanks for all your help. when i delete the .json file then refresh, the posts show up but after a reboot of the system , blank again.

i wonder what's going on????

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

You're probably rebooting before it gets a chance to save the data anywhere. It doesn't save the messages immediately upon downloading each one, but rather it just periodically saves all the messages at once. So just delete the json file, and then don't reboot for a while, and you'll probably be fine.

[Jeff Licquia (jeff-licquia)]

I'm experiencing the same problem. I took the steps in comment #1, and have attached my log. In particular, this looks interesting:

DEBUG Thread-29 2013-06-03 14:11:57,015 friends.utils.base Identica.receive
 has completed in 0.05s, thread exiting.
ERROR Thread-30 2013-06-03 14:11:57,020 friends.utils.base argument msg: Ex
pected Soup.Message, but got gi.repository.Soup.Message
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/utils/base.py", line 160, in run
    super().run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/threading.py", line 596, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/utils/base.py", line 154, in _ret
val_catcher
    self._success_callback(str(func(*args, **kwargs)))
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/protocols/twitter.py", line 237,
in receive
    self.home()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/protocols/twitter.py", line 166,
in home
    for tweet in self._get_url(url):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/protocols/twitter.py", line 95, i
n _get_url
    rate_limiter=self._rate_limiter).get_json()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/utils/http.py", line 100, in get_json
    with self._transfer() as message:
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/contextlib.py", line 48, in __enter__
    return next(self.gen)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/friends/utils/http.py", line 90, in _transfer
    _soup.send_message(message)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/types.py", line 113, in function
    return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs)
TypeError: argument msg: Expected Soup.Message, but got gi.repository.Soup.Message

It appears in a few places in the log.

[Jeff Licquia (jeff-licquia)]

On a hunch, disabled identi.ca support. (It'll have to happen anyway with the pump.io conversion.) That made the exception go away, but didn't fix the problem with updates stopping after a time.

Looking at the most recent debug log, I stopped friends-app (via the close button), and killed the dispatcher. Once I killed the dispatcher, the service (still running) seemed to wake up, and when I ran the app again and clicked the update button, I got the past hour's worth of updates.

So, perhaps it's a deadlock of some kind holding the dispatcher open and preventing new updates. Or something.

This friends.log covers all this activity. After doing the above, I closed friends-app and killed all the friends-foo processes to ensure I had a clean log.

[Jeff Licquia (jeff-licquia)]

And I can confirm that killing friends-dispatcher by itself (while keeping friends-app and friends-service running) seems to kick the update process loose, at least for a while.

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Thanks for the logs. I will take a look at these shortly (just a little
indisposed at the moment).

Indeed, friends-dispatcher is meant to exit after each refresh completes
(the friends-service exists to initiate it periodically). So if you are
seeing the dispatcher idling then it is most likely deadlocked or hung up
on something. Will take a bit of fiddling to figure out exactly what.
On 2013-06-03 1:50 PM, "Jeff Licquia" <email address hidden> wrote:

> And I can confirm that killing friends-dispatcher by itself (while
> keeping friends-app and friends-service running) seems to kick the
> update process loose, at least for a while.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to friends
> in Ubuntu.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1171745
>
> Title:
> Timeline doesn't refresh
>
> Status in “friends” package in Ubuntu:
> Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> After a while I can't refresh the timeline. Try to click on refresh
> but nothing happens.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
> Package: friends 0.1.3daily13.04.17.1~13.04-0ubuntu1
> Uname: Linux 3.8.0-19-generic x86_64
> Architecture: amd64
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/friends/+bug/1171745/+subscriptions
>

[Jeff Licquia (jeff-licquia)]

Added a little debugging logic on my own, and watching the logs. One factor that seems to be present: multiple refresh threads per service running at once. Apparently, Facebook and Twitter start refreshes, and then in the middle of the refresh two more refresh threads get started. After that, all you get in the logs are attempts by the dispatcher to exit. It's in deadlock, because it can't get past the "with _exit_lock:". (I added a debug statement to tell me right when it enters terminate().)

It's not just that situation, though. Just now, I got it to deadlock with just the two update threads (one per service).

Oddly, it seems too easy to get 4 update threads running. It seems like I do one refresh request, and the dispatcher records handling 2 refresh requests, with pretty much the same sequence of log entries (i.e. not just random chance that a timer ran out right when I clicked refresh). I wonder if there's a race condition there.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for friends (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Nahuel ANGELINETTI (nahuel-ahtna)]

Well, since my upgrade to 15.04, I have the same problem (using gnome shell).
Delete all friends-* apps, reinstalling, clearing all the cache of friends, doesn't change anything, my timeline is empty...

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Unfortunately friends app has been disabled due to incompatibilities with the ubuntu phone efforts.

[Nahuel ANGELINETTI (nahuel-ahtna)]

Hi,
So, what is the new social networks app ?