Nepomuk Strigi does not autostart

[Cyberkilla]

Binary package hint: kdebase-runtime

Recently (within the past few weeks) Strigi has stopped autostarting at login. In the Desktop Search dialog, the option "Enable Strigi Desktop File Indexer" is unchecked. If I check it again and click apply, Strigi starts and the icon appears in the stray. On subsequent logins, however, it is unchecked again, with the message, "Strigi service not running."

I can also launch it from the console with: "nepomukservicestub nepomukstrigiservice" and the icon will appear in the tray, showing its indexing progress.

I cannot find any blatant crash reports on my system about it, or anything obvious in .xsession-errors.

----
cat nepomukserverrc
[Basic Settings]
Start Nepomuk=true

[Service-nepomukmigration1]
autostart=false

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
autostart=true

[main Settings]
Maximum memory=50
Storage Dir[$e]=$HOME/.kde/share/apps/nepomuk/repository/main/
Used Soprano Backend=virtuosobackend
----

As you can see, the config file intends for Strigi to autostart.

----
ps aux | grep nep
1000 1770 0.0 1.5 113548 32660 ? Sl 14:00 0:00 kdeinit4: nepomukserver [kdeinit]
1000 1775 0.0 0.7 99380 16004 ? Sl 14:00 0:00 /usr/bin/nepomukservicestub nepomukstorage
1000 1868 0.0 0.6 40300 12748 ? S 14:00 0:00 /usr/bin/nepomukservicestub nepomukqueryservice
1000 1869 0.0 0.6 40356 13620 ? S 14:00 0:00 /usr/bin/nepomukservicestub nepomukremovablestorageservice
1000 1870 0.0 0.7 45756 16180 ? S 14:00 0:00 /usr/bin/nepomukservicestub nepomukontologyloader
1000 1871 0.0 0.6 48544 13532 ? Sl 14:00 0:00 /usr/bin/nepomukservicestub nepomukfilewatch
1000 2234 0.4 2.1 154056 45180 ? Sl 14:09 0:01 kdeinit4: kcmshell4 [kdeinit] kcm_nepomuk
1000 2244 0.0 0.0 3328 820 pts/1 S+ 14:13 0:00 grep nep
----

In conclusion:
- Strigi is set to autostart.
- Strigi does NOT autostart.
- Strigi does not throw any obvious error messages that I've noticed.
- Strigi will start manually and begin indexing.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: kdebase-runtime 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-20.30-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-20-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Apr 14 14:02:00 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: kdebase-runtime

[Xavier Tardivel (the-frog45)]

Rog131 on ubuntuforums.com suggest the problem might be linked to the following patch :

kdebase-runtime (4:4.4.2-0ubuntu1) lucid; urgency=low
...
[ Jonathan Thomas ]
* Add kubuntu_89_strigi_ram_detection.diff. This will make Nepomuk disable
strigi on systems with less than or equal to 1GB of RAM, on its first
run. Users will still be able to enable it for themselves if they wish.

Indeed I have 1 GiB of RAM.

I have re enabled strigi from the configuration menu, and restarted. After the following reboot, strigi is disabled again. Is this an expected behavior ?

From the description of the patch, it seems people should be allowed to enable Strigi at startup even with RAM < 1 GiB.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

I doubt that that is the cuase. When that patch disables strigi, it writes autostart=false to the nepomukserverrc, but in Cyberkilla's case we see that autostart is enabled. This points more towards one of the many nepomukservicestub crashes.

but, to be certain, could you try replacing the [Service-nepomukstrigiservice] portion of your ~/.kde/share/config/nepomukserverrc with:

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=false

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Excuse me, it should look like this:
[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=true

[Cyberkilla (cyberkilla04uk-deactivatedaccount)]

Just an FYI: I have 2GB RAM installed on this computer; the patch /shouldn't/ affect me.

@Jonathan Thomas: Is there anything I can do to check whether nepomukservicestub has crashed? The usual places seem to be devoid of any evidence.

[Sam Rog (samrog131)]

Description: Ubuntu lucid (development branch)
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid

Beta2

Linux alpha 2.6.32-21-generic

Qt: 4.6.2
KDE Development Platform: 4.4.2 (KDE 4.4.2)
kde4-config: 1.0

Memory 1G

What i have tried:

1)
With the gui. System Settings > Advanced > Desktop Search (Enable Strigi Desktop File Indexer)
The Strigi is up and running

The nepomukserverrc has:

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=true

log out - log in

The Strigi is not starting and the nepomukserverrc is back to the:

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=false

2)
log out - starting the tty1 - log in - edit the nepomukserverrc:

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=true

tty8: log in to the KDE - the Strigi is not starting and the nepomukserverrc is back to the

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=false

3)
Recompiling kdebase-runtime packages without the kubuntu_89_strigi_ram_detection.diff. Installing them.

Enabling Strigi Desktop File Indexer
The Strigi is up and running

The nepomukserverrc has:
[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=true

log out - log in. The Strigi is up and running.

Cleaning the package cache - updating package database - upgrading to the repo version of the kdebase-runtime packages.

The nepomukserverrc has:

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=true

log out - log in

The Strigi is not starting and the nepomukserverrc is back to the:

[Service-nepomukstrigiservice]
First start=false
autostart=false

It seems that, at here, every log in is the first time...

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

@Cyberkilla

Hmm, you could ls /var/crash to see if apport picked anything up.

On an unrelated note, I suppose I should revert that patch. It's a shame that strigi is such an unabashed memory hog though :/
Oh well, nothing to do about that for now.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

So, since Cyberkilla has more than 1GB of RAM, it is a separate issue from this patch.

@Sam
Could you file a new bug for the 1GB of RAM bug? I have an updated patch that should fix things, it'd be great if you could test it and report your results in the new bug: http://pastebin.com/RxynHfNR
Thanks in advance

[Sam Rog (samrog131)]

New bug report added: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-runtime/+bug/564049.
(Nepomuk Strigi does not autostart with less than or equal to 1GB of RAM)

[Cyberkilla (cyberkilla04uk-deactivatedaccount)]

@Jonathan Thomas: There are no crash reports in "/var/crash" for anything except plymouthd and a few GIMP crashes.

[Cyberkilla (cyberkilla04uk-deactivatedaccount)]

The bug is fixed for me, somehow..

The bug report mentioned in comment #10 is supposedly only affecting people with <=1GB RAM, but I have 2GB and the fix worked for me too.

Strigi is now running at startup.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Cool. As long as it has a happy ending....