gpilotd running but no panel icon

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄]

Binary package hint: gnome-pilot

Latest Jaunty, adding the Palm applet to the panel results in the configuration wizard appearing, and successful configuration of my Palm T|X results in a good sync, but there is never an icon in the panel.

I can see the gpilotd and gpilot-applet processes running, but no icon appears.

This is the same for gpilot 2.0.15 and 2.0.17.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Is this a regression due to bug #320184 ?

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

I don't know, is there a package older than 2.0.15 I can install to test?

[Andrew (and471)]

I very much doubt it is a regression.

All the patch did that I submitted was change a .desktop file. I still left the icon that the panel applet uses and so I don't see why it shouldn't use it.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

OK, I took a look and agree this doesn't look related to #320184. I'll try and investigate.

[Don Cristóbal (doncristobal)]

Same thing here. I tried to add it several times to the panel, and it must have been somewhere several times because I got several messages about the applet having crashed when I said:
$ killall gpilot-applet
I don't know if that's the same bug, but the applet should not allow itself to run in several instances. Or can this be useful in any situation?

Plus: I can "synchronise" without any error messages but there is nothing to be seen in Evolution, and new entries from Evolution don't display on the Palm.

Log from the palm:
"gnome-pilot v.2.0.17
On host (...)
Synchronizing ECalendar
Synchronizing EMemos
Synchronizing EToDo
Synchronizing Time
Synchronzation completed"

The progress bars on the gpilot-window behaved as always in 8.10: They progressed and flickered until it was "done".

Should I report this second issue as a separate bug report or could it be the same problem?

[Mike O'Connell (wundbread)]

I'm seeing the same thing, I just can't add a pilot applet to the panel. I can sync, just no applet.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

What seems to be happening is that the applet is not able to locate pixmaps. The call to gnome_program_locate_file() is returning NULL. Nothing has changed on the gnome-pilot side, so I'm presuming this means either something changed in the gnome environment on jaunty, or something changed on the gnome code side. To investigate further I'll have to install a jaunty dev environment.

[Alexander Gieg (alexgieg)]

I'm having this problem too. Here's what I get at the console when I load the daemon by hand:

$ gpilot-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_PilotApplet_Factory
IOR: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
gpilotd-Message: Initing gnome vfs

Afterwards, whenever I try adding the applet to a panel, these errors appear:

(gpilot-applet:8712): Gnome-CRITICAL **: gnome_program_locate_file: assertion `program != NULL' failed

(gpilot-applet:8712): Gnome-CRITICAL **: gnome_program_locate_file: assertion `program != NULL' failed

(gpilot-applet:8712): Gnome-CRITICAL **: gnome_program_locate_file: assertion `program != NULL' failed

(gpilot-applet:8712): Gnome-CRITICAL **: gnome_program_locate_file: assertion `program != NULL' failed

(gpilot-applet:8712): Gnome-CRITICAL **: gnome_program_locate_file: assertion `program != NULL' failed

** (gpilot-applet:8712): WARNING **: need to free the control here
** Message: state = INITIALISING
gpilotd-Message: Activating object OAFIID:GNOME_Pilot_Daemon
** Message: state = CONNECTING_TO_DAEMON

[gerstrong (gerstrong)]

The main problem of that is that without the icon, you cannot upload files anymore. All the rest wouldn't be that important.

I also can confirm that bug.

[zefanja (zefanja)]

Same problem here. I can also confirm that bug.

[Mize (eboltz)]

Same here...no icon and - as a result - I managed to install it five times. Anyone know how to remove it four times? :)

[Brett Johnson (linuxturtle)]

$ pkill gpilot

(click "reload" on one of the resulting alerts, cancel on the rest :).

[nursoda (olav-seyfarth)]

@Mize: to remove superflous gpanel entries - from Gnome panel(?):

open a terminal
$ cd ~/.gconf/apps/panel
$ grep pilot `find . -type f`
edit the XML file deleting "<li>...</li>" structures holding gpilot lines
delete corresponding directories "applet_[number]"

[Mize (eboltz)]

muchas gracias!

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

I've been meaning to investigate this.

I ran from the Live CD (jaunty beta) and confirmed the bug and saw the "gnome_program_locate_file: assertion `program != NULL' failed" . These messages are coming from the applet trying to find the bitmaps for its icons. It seems there's been a change on the gnome side, as the gnome-pilot code hasn't changed recently. On Hardy, the same library calls did not generate an assertion failure.

I recently upgraded my system to jaunty and was able to add the applet to the panel! I'll try creating a new user and seeing if it works from their session, as I'm a bit confused...

gerstrong: if you want to upload files you can use "gpilot-install-file" from a terminal.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Found the bug. Issue is that the gnome panel-applet code was changed in gnome-2.25 and now it does not call gnome_program_init, which the gnome-pilot applet code assumed.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Attaching tar archive containing .dsc, .changes and .diff.gz to add the previously attached patch.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Update: Thanks to Daniel Clement for testing the above patch. He reports that it built and installed okay for him, and the panel applet appeared correctly.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Thanks Matt! Subscribing sponsor team.

[J.M. Hardin (jmhardin)]

Would it be possible to get this available either in a PPA or via jaunty-backports? I managed to figure out how to upload a single file to my PDA but I have several files that need to get uploaded and a deb would be a lifesaver.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Hi Daniel,

I'm travelling at the moment, so can't compile up a .deb (I presume one will appear in Jaunty soon enough now). To build one yourself from the .dsc posted to this bug, try the following:
     1. If you haven't already done so, download the deb build utilities
        using "sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev"
     2. Download the gnome-pilot build dependencies using "sudo apt-get
        build-dep gnome-pilot"
     3. download the .tar file from my update of 5/5/09 above
     4. unpack the tar file in a new directory
     5. download gnome-pilot_2.0.17.orig.tar.gz from
        https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/+source/gnome-pilot/2.0.17-0ubuntu1 into that directory
     6. Now unpack and apply the diff using "dpkg-source -x
     7. Now change directory into gnome-pilot-2.0.17 and run
        "dpkg-buildpackage -b" to build a binary .deb you should be able
        to install.

[Alexander Gieg (alexgieg)]

Thank you very much! Following your instructions allowed me to compile it. For anyone interested, here are links to my compiled version (you'll need both files):

http://www.4shared.com/file/106276272/d806802b/gnome-pilot_2017-0ubuntu2_i386.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/106276835/2f99555a/libgnome-pilot2_2017-0ubuntu2_i386.html

Please notice that by using these you're trusting me by installing a software that'll have the same access rights to your system you yourself have, and so on and so forth, so if you want to be sure, wait for them to appear in the official repositories. Otherwise, proceed with due caution.

That said, if you want to use those, place them in a folder, open a terminal, cd there, run this:

$ sudo dpkg -i ./gnome-pilot_2.0.17-0ubuntu2_i386.deb ./libgnome-pilot2_2.0.17-0ubuntu2_i386.deb

And the add the applet to your panel as usual.

[Ed Comer (celem)]

Thank you. I use the Jaunty amd64 version so I couldn't use Alexander's builds. The fix works just fine.

[Ed Comer (celem)]

Whoops - I spoke too soon. This fix did make my Pilot applet appear on the panel. However, I dropped a file to be uploaded to the Palm onto the applet, then did a sync. The sync worked and the file was uploaded BUT the applet disappeared from the panel and I had to click on the panel and reload the applet.

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Ed, if that behaviour is reproducible you should raise a new bug against it, as it would be a separate issue.

You can sometimes get useful terminal output from panel applets by:
  o First start the gpilot-applet from a terminal.
  o Then add the applet to the panel. It will use your running applet and you'll now see it in the panel.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Matt, are you going to commit that patch upstream as well? Thanks!

Will sponsor now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-pilot - 2.0.17-0ubuntu2

---------------
gnome-pilot (2.0.17-0ubuntu2) karmic; urgency=low

  * Add fix-panel-icon.dpatch: Fix panel icon. Thanks to Matt Davey
    (upstream) for the patch! (LP: #349650)

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:23:19 +0200

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Yes, I will be committing this upstream. You can track upstream bug #584894
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=584894

[jaunty-newbie (werbung-droelle)]

Hi there,

i run in this bug , too.
i have still 2.0.17-0ubuntu1 version of gnome-pilot

aptitude reinstall gnome-pilot did not work (it reinstalls: 2.0.17-0ubuntu1 instead of 2.0.17-0ubuntu2) ,
i use ubuntu 9.04 .

can anyone tell me what to do, to get this newest version.

( sorry for this typical newbie question ... )

[William McKee (william-knowmad)]

The new package (gnome-pilot_2.0.17-0ubuntu2) has not made it into Jaunty yet. However, I did find it in Karmic[1] and was able to successfully download and install the 64-bit version for my Jaunty laptop. YMMV.

William

[1] http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/gnome-pilot

[Greg T. Bzdell (gbzdell)]

I would like to confirm that AMD64 gnome-pilot_2.0.17-0ubuntu2 from Karmic will work in Jaunty. So logically the i386 version should work too.

[Rudolf Reuter (reuterr)]

Hello Matt,
Thank you for providing the new version gnome-pilot 2.0.17-0ubuntu2.
I could install from http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/gnome-pilot on Ubuntu 0904.
I tried the same on Ubuntu 0810, but do to library conflicts I gave up (libc6 2.10.1, belocs-locales-bin).

It dows show now the pilot icon when I added the pilot applet to the panel (Ubuntu 0904).
I use a Palm Tungsten E2 PDA.

Unfortunately after a reboot it dows show 2 same pilot icons in the panel.
Typing $ ps -A | grep "pilot*" does show "gpilot-applet" and "gpilotd" only.
If I do a hotsynch, the task panel does show two tasks and I see two progress windows, but it works ok with evolution.
Does anybody has the same effect?

Greetings, Rudolf

[Matt Davey (mcdavey)]

Rudolf - that's a strange effect, for sure. Any chance there's another process lurking: could you try "ps auxww | grep pilot"?

Glad your sync is working. I'm not running 9.04, so I can't try to reproduce, but I haven't heard of this effect before.

[Rudolf Reuter (reuterr)]

Hello Matt,
Thank you for giving help to the trouble shooting.
The result of "ps auxww | grep pilot" is:
rudi@rudil9:~$ ps auxww | grep pilot
rudi 3979 0.0 2.0 26632 10252 ? S 12:03 0:00 /usr/bin/gpilot-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_PilotApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=19
rudi 4005 0.0 1.7 26128 9128 ? S 12:03 0:00 /usr/bin/gpilotd --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Pilot_Daemon --oaf-ior-fd=24
rudi 4156 0.0 0.1 4424 828 pts/0 S+ 12:05 0:00 grep pilot

[Joachim (joachimrs)]

Patched and installed new .dpkg according to instructions from Matt Davey (written on 2009-05-18). Thanks a lot!

[Simon (simon-antrobus)]

I confirm the same effect as Rudolf described (2009-09-11). I had tried several times to add the pilot applet before giving up and searching for help. I found this thread and installed Alexander's packages (2009-05-18). I now have eleven (11) applets on my task bar!! And synchronising works - but 11 task windows appear in parallel. I suppose I can live with it but it looks VERY messy. The response to "ps auxww | grep pilot" shows that there is only one applet process and one daemon running, same as for Rudolf.