empathy doesn't autoconnect at startup

[Tanaka]

Binary package hint: empathy

empathy doesn't autoconnect at startup even if the proper option is checked. at startup you have to start empathy first, then select the desired status and only then it will connect.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: empathy 2.29.93-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-17.26-generic 2.6.32.10+drm33.1
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-17-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Mar 27 18:27:44 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/empathy
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=it_IT.utf8
SourcePackage: empathy

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

* Is this reproducible?
* If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? Thanks!

[robbanl (robert-lindberg1978)]

I have the same problem with Ubuntu 10.04 netbook edition on my samsung nc10.In Empathy settings i have checked the box to auto connect at start up. Every time i start the computer Empathy doesn't auto connect, i have to manually click the empathy icon to start it.

[Mateusz Łoskot (mloskot)]

Ubuntu 10.4 (64-bit) on Lenovo ThinkPad T400

I'm observing the same problem.

First, I did:
1. Boot the system
2. Logged on the system
3. Configured Jabber and Google Talk account in Empathy
4. Verified Empathy works well and is accessible from the Indicator Applet, Me menu, etc.

Next, I did the following:
1. Restarted the system
2. Logged on the system
3. Asked my girlfriend to check if she can see me online on Jabber or Google Talk
4. She confirmed I am NOT online
5. I selected Chat from the Indicator Applet drop-down menu
6. I noticed Empathy initially shows my status as Offline and next connects changing my status to Online
7. My girlfriend confirms I am online.

Conclusion:
Empathy is not being launched during logging on the system, what the Chat availability from the Indicator Applet or Me menu may suggest.

Either it is unintentional and incidental confusion or something is not working well.
I am not the only one who's got confused:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1451142

[Bobby Graese (bobby-graese)]

The "Automatically connect at startup" option is an EMPATHY option, not a SYSTEM option, so this really seems like the functionality is correct. Although, it is confusing wording, but I'm not sure how it could be made better. I was able to make empathy start on login by adding:
empathy -h
as a startup application. This, combined with checking "Automatically connect at startup" gets the desired results. Perhaps this setup could be made easier for the average user? It seems like it would be a popular option.

[Ole Laursen (olau)]

I don't know if this is the problem the OP is facing, for me I went to the settings for startup applications in the GNOME control panel and checked the Empathy entry. Then I reboot. When the desktop comes up again, empathy is started up, but the status is offline. I have to manually select the online status, then it connects. The "Automatically connect at startup" is checked in the Empathy settings.

For me the problem appears to be that the command in the startup settings is "empathy --no-connect". I have no idea where this came from, in fact I got "Exec=empathy" in /etc/xdg/autostart/empathy.desktop. I'm going to change it to "empathy --start-hidden" and see if that helps. :)

[bluesky (f-a-b-i-o-99)]

I think the problem here is Empathy doesn't get started at login, so you have to add it as a startup application. This is very unintuitive for the average user.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

hmm, I talked upstream and they dont want any option in empathy to start at boot. They say use startup applications :(

[Mateusz Łoskot (mloskot)]

@Omer I think it's perfectly valid approach. The Startup Applications is supposed to be a central place to control those, so there is no need to scatter this functionality in the programs. The latter would be a Windows-like way, but on Linux, flexibility is the goal.

However, this should be better advertised to users to avoid confusions as the one that raised this bug report.

[Ole Laursen (olau)]

Omer: IMHO it should simply start automatically on boot if it was running last time you logged off. If you quit Empathy, it shouldn't start again. That was how things used to work with IM, no conf, easy to understand.

But this is standard session management, maybe it does so if you tick the "Remember running applications when log off" or whatever it's called in the second tab in the settings for startup applications.

[Tom Inglis (tominglis)]

I think I have the same problem as this on Ubuntu 10.04 AMD64.

I've configured a few different chat accounts (2 Google Talk, 1 Facebook, 1 IRC). I would expect them to connect by default when you log in, but they don't and all of the availability options are greyed out in the Message menu. Instead I need to load up empathy and then select "Available" to achieve the same result.

[Dario Panico (dariopan)]

the me menu to select your status is quite unuseful if most of the space is taken by status list all grayed out...
empathy should at least be launched to allow to choose your status via the me menu.

The best would be to have it autoconnect (as required here) with a preselected status (not always "online/available")

[eyrieowl (eyrieowl)]

If Empathy is going to present itself to the user as though it is started (the Indicator panel), it should, in fact, be started. It is entirely misleading to have the status indications there and not have the actual application which sets them running. It's perfectly fine to have a Startup Applications entry for empathy and to have that be the way it starts; however, users should not have to go find that and put that in themselves. It should already be there. The "flexibility" goal of Linux would be met, users intuition about what is going on would be met, life would be good. :) It's no good putting nifty social networking features front-and-center and then telling users "well, to use it, you actually have to go do this and type that, etc..." Fwiw, I think the me menu should also have a direct link to pull up the buddy list, but that's somewhat outside the scope of this bug....

[Chris Skillen (chris-skillenuk)]

I am also using Ubuntu 10.04 with integrated Empathy (2.30.1) and I am having a similar problem. I have noticed that if I start my computer with a wired network connection at start-up then Empathy will connect to all my accounts automatically (without it being part of the start-up applications). I am guessing that the wired connection becomes established before Empathy has finished loading allowing it to connect. However if I start-up with a wireless connection (which I normally do) then the connection takes longer to establish and Empathy does not connect when the internet becomes available meaning that it does not to connect on start-up. For some reason, adding it to the start-up applications with the -h tag is an effective workaround for start-ups with wireless connections.

I hope this helps! It would be good in my opinion if Empathy was able to periodically check for an available internet connection and automatically connect. This way it would work as many people are expecting it to.

[mattman85 (mroslevich)]

That is what I've noticed, too, Chris.. With a wired connection, it works fine, and with wireless, it doesn't. is there a way to increase the load time of the wireless connection, then, so that Empathy/Gwibber/Evolution will be able to startup? Alternatively, is there a way to pause Empathy/Gwibber/Evolution autoconnect so that it can wait until after the wireless connection is established?

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Please stay on topic and also I set empathy as a startup application in ubuntu 10.10 and it starts fine. could anyone confirm the same to so that we could close this issue or if the issue is still there we could send it to the people writing the software. thanks

[scoopex (ms-ubuntu)]

From usability view you should really configure empathy as default to be a startup application.

Non technical users do not know anything about commandline switches.

If a user really does not need this it can be removed from startup applications.

From a usability point of view activation/deactivation of default startup should be located in
empathy menu.

[Ken Sharp (kennybobs)]

Yes, this is fixed in Ubuntu 10.10

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

closing this bug as according to Ken this bug is fixed in ubuntu 10.10