Contacts does not show up in empathy contact list

Bug #676828 reported by Arun
124
This bug affects 26 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
empathy (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: empathy

This mostly happens when empathy starts on ubuntu startup, when opening empathy it shows no contacts in a contact list. It does not show anything with 'Show offline contacts'. Restarting empathy is the only solution that works (sometimes even that doesn't work).

Description: Ubuntu 10.10
Release: 10.10
Package: empathy
  Installed: 2.32.0.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 2.32.0.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: empathy 2.32.0.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Nov 18 11:02:23 2010
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/empathy
LocalLibraries: /usr/local/lib/libgstfarsight-0.10.so.0.3.1
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: empathy

Revision history for this message
Arun (carun) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Viktor (clicman) wrote :

Additional info: Rally account is online, but contacts not visible. Users from my contact list - see mine as online? And I can recive messagesd fom them and replay them.
P.S. I use corporate jabber account with a lot >100 contacts.

Revision history for this message
Brian Curtis (bcurtiswx) wrote :

Thanks for your bug report and helping to make Ubuntu better. Does this happen for a specific type of accounts (jabber, aim, gchat, YIM etc..) or all of them? Since this bug report, there has been an upgrade in Ubuntu. Since there are newer packages, please upgrade and test those out and let us know if this is still an issue.

Changed in empathy (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Viktor (clicman) wrote :

Just upgraded to Natty, proplem still exests.

sidochenko@nt70 ~$ dpkg -l empathy*|grep ii
ii empathy 2.34.0-0ubuntu3 GNOME multi-protocol chat and call client
ii empathy-common 2.34.0-0ubuntu3 GNOME multi-protocol chat and call client (common files)

sidochenko@nt70 ~$ dpkg -l telepathy*|grep ii
ii telepathy-butterfly 0.5.15-1 MSN connection manager for Telepathy
ii telepathy-gabble 0.11.10-1ubuntu1 Jabber/XMPP connection manager
ii telepathy-haze 0.4.0-1ubuntu0.1 A telepathy connection manager that use libpurple
ii telepathy-idle 0.1.8-1ubuntu1 IRC connection manager for Telepathy
ii telepathy-logger 0.2.6-1ubuntu1 Telepathy logger service - Daemon
ii telepathy-mission-control-5 1:5.7.7-1 management daemon for Telepathy real-time communication framework

It`s only for jabber for me.

Revision history for this message
Wylbur (wilbur-wilbur) wrote :

Same issue for me:

wylbur@Wylbur-D630:~$ dpkg -l empathy*|grep ii
ii empathy 2.32.1-0ubuntu1.1 GNOME multi-protocol chat and call client
ii empathy-common 2.32.1-0ubuntu1.1 GNOME multi-protocol chat and call client (common files)

wylbur@Wylbur-D630:~$ dpkg -l telepathy*|grep ii
ii telepathy-butterfly 0.5.14-1 MSN connection manager for Telepathy
ii telepathy-gabble 0.10.0-1ubuntu0.1 Jabber/XMPP connection manager
ii telepathy-haze 0.4.0-1ubuntu0.1 A telepathy connection manager that use libpurple
ii telepathy-idle 0.1.6-1 IRC connection manager for Telepathy
ii telepathy-logger 0.1.5-1ubuntu1 Telepathy logger service - Daemon
ii telepathy-mission-control-5 1:5.6.0-1 management daemon for Telepathy real-time communication framework
ii telepathy-salut 0.3.12-1 Link-local XMPP connection manager for the Telepathy framework

Revision history for this message
Christoph Buchner (bilderbuchi) wrote :

I think this is a duplicate of bug #558872

Revision history for this message
Viktor (clicman) wrote :

Do not agree, Christoph. I have LDAP auth. Ok, Empathy wants keyring after start, but restarting doesn`t help.
P.S. blank contact list appeared time after time.

Revision history for this message
Viktor (clicman) wrote :

But I can`t reproduce bug for now.

sidochenko@nt70:~$ dpkg -l empathy*|grep ii
ii empathy 2.34.0-0ubuntu3.1 GNOME multi-protocol chat and call client
ii empathy-common 2.34.0-0ubuntu3.1 GNOME multi-protocol chat and call client (common files)

sidochenko@nt70:~$ dpkg -l telepathy*|grep ii
ii telepathy-butterfly 0.5.15-1 MSN connection manager for Telepathy
ii telepathy-core 24 Telepathy Core
ii telepathy-gabble 0.11.10-1ubuntu1 Jabber/XMPP connection manager
ii telepathy-gnome 24 Telepathy GNOME components
ii telepathy-haze 0.4.0-1ubuntu0.1 A telepathy connection manager that use libpurple
ii telepathy-idle 0.1.8-1ubuntu1 IRC connection manager for Telepathy
ii telepathy-logger 0.2.6-1ubuntu1.2 Telepathy logger service - Daemon
ii telepathy-mission-control-5 1:5.7.7-1 management daemon for Telepathy real-time communication framework
ii telepathy-salut 0.4.0-1 Link-local XMPP connection manager for the Telepathy framework
ii telepathy-sofiasip 0.6.3-1 SIP connection manager for the Telepathy framework
sidochenko@nt70:~$
sidochenko@nt70:~$ dpkg -l gnome-keyring|grep ii
ii gnome-keyring 2.92.92.is.2.32.1-0ubuntu2 GNOME keyring services (daemon and tools)

Revision history for this message
Steve Corbett (scorbett) wrote :

I've been using Empathy with no trouble for about ten months (using a google talk account). Yesterday I added an MSN account and everything seemed to work okay. Today, went to log in and saw that none of my google talk contacts were listed in the main window (choosing View, Show Offline Contacts did nothing). Tried logging out and back in several times. My MSN contacts show up no problem, but my google talk contacts are missing. Odd thing is, my google contacts can see me logged in, and can still chat me, but I can't see them at all. Removed my MSN account entirely and still can't see any of my google talk contacts - the main window is just empty now.

Ubuntu 10.04, Empathy 2.30-3.

Revision history for this message
Ilya G. Ryabinkin (ileyka) wrote :

I have the same issues as Steve. All my google contacts are missing rendering my roaster empty (I don't have any MSN contacts). This happened I believe after the last update. Ubuntu 10.04 as well

Revision history for this message
Philippe Coval (rzr) wrote :

Hi, I faced this issue a few days ago too, but I suspect the problem is google side because If using XMPP transport (jabber.org) It works as expected ...

--
http://rzr.online.fr/q/xmpp

Revision history for this message
Ricardo (jimenezrick) wrote :

I also have the same issue. With Google all my contacts are missing, with jabber.org everything works fine.

Revision history for this message
Steve Corbett (scorbett) wrote :

I've switched to Pidgin for now, which appears to have no problem displaying my google talk contacts. I don't think the problem is on google's side, Philippe, I think there's definitely something wrong with Empathy. I also don't think this bug should be marked as a duplicate of 558872.

Revision history for this message
d_chall (d-chall) wrote :

I also have this problem, far as I can tell it has nothing to do with the keyring so I don't think it is a duplicate. I have empathy listed as a startup application, but when it first starts up the contact list is empty. It list me as online and available and if someone texts me I can respond, but to get any contacts in the list I have to completely close empathy and then start it up again.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

I also have this problem. About one week ago, contacts were listed properly in Empathy 2.30.3 (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS), but some days ago, I can't see any Google contact in Empathy.

I've alsa configured a People Nearby account, and I can see my co-workers listed in Empathy's main window, but my Google Talk account's contacts are missing.

I seems that Google has changed something in their google talk's protocol that avoids Empathy to list contacts properly. Pidgin lists contacts properly, and Empathy has not been updated in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS since September 2010.

Many thanks for your help

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

This bug should be fixed, at least, in LTS version

Changed in empathy (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in empathy (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Achilleas Koutsou (achilleas-k) wrote :

I have the same problem too.
Something I haven't seen mentioned is that my Google contacts see me as being online and can initiate a chat.
They still do not appear in the contact list when a chat is started.

Revision history for this message
Vlado (vbarzov-gmail) wrote :

same exact issue here as described above: google contacts are missing but others see me as available and can initiate a talk. My 'nearby buddies' also disappeared, but everyone in the office is using gmail anyways. I suspect the issue is google related as they recently introduced some changes to integrate google+ or something like that

Revision history for this message
Roberto Segura (turmis-mistermod) wrote :

Same here. Empathy 2.30.3 + Ubuntu 10.04

The kill and restart empathy process doesn't work for me.

Revision history for this message
Kiko Barcelli (kikobar) wrote :

I have the same issue. I cannot see my contacts but they can see me, and actually I am online.
In fact, I can even initiate a new conversation with one of them if I go by the menu and do 'Chat/New Conversation', and manually enter his account-id.

Revision history for this message
Sebastian Bengtsson (5ebastian) wrote :

I have a google talk account and a jabber.se account. These accounts have added each other as contacts and both are logged on in (the same) empathy.
With the jabber.se account I can see the google account as a contact in the contact list.
However, the google account can NOT see the jabber.se account (or any of its other contacts).

Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, amd64.
GNOME 2.30.2
empathy 2.30.3-0ubuntu1
telepathy-gabble 0.8.12-0ubuntu1.1
telepathy-mission-control-5 5.3.2-3

(All the other contacts to the google talk account doesn't show either. The contacts are visible in the gmail web interface to google talk.
If I initiate a conversation from the jabber.se, to the visible google talk account, I can reply with the google talk account.
I can initiate a conversation from the google talk account via the Chat menu->New conversation and typing in the contact info manually.
I have a few MSN contacts and they are visible.)

Revision history for this message
bujdi (sandor-bujdoso) wrote :

I too have the same problem (no google-talk contacts are shown in the contact list, but presence is online, can receive incoming text communication).
Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS; telepathy-gabble 0.8.12-0ubuntu1.1
GABBLE_PERSIST=1 GABBLE_DEBUG=ALL /usr/lib/telepathy/telepathy-gabble 2>&1 | tee debug.log
shows that the connection and login is successful, the status of online contacs is received.

I can't see any specific error message in the attached log (but I haven't seen such log before).

Revision history for this message
Ricardo (jimenezrick) wrote :

It seems that most jabber clients are having troubles getting the contact list from GTalk. So, probably is Google's fault. Here gives some info:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/chat/thread?tid=4934204c7dcf90f4

Extracted from that link:

Google has changed the way to send/retrieve contact list. Now it sends contacts with: <ros:query xmlns:ros="jabber:iq:roster"/>, but should do this with: <query xmlns="jabber:iq:roster" /> which is an XMPP standard. I really don't know why they've changed this...

http://xmpp.org/rfcs/rfc3921.html#roster

Revision history for this message
Stuart Rossiter (monsieurrigsby) wrote :

Just to note that upgrading to the latest Lucid telepathy PPA fixes this (see this Ubuntu forums thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1594248). So this suggests that, if it is the GTalk protocol change in comment #24, the telepathy guys have already fixed it.

Other workaround is obviously to switch to Pidgin.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

I don't think installing Telepathy is the way to solve the problem.

This bug has been detected and reported in LTS version, and since it has been confirmed by many users (and seems to be a possible source for the bug), it should be fixed in LTS version.

I've used Pidgin today and it still works properly so, as Stuart comments, can be an useful workaround while the bug is beeing fixed.

Revision history for this message
zcox (zcox522) wrote :

If this bug is Confirmed, why is it set to Low Importance and Unassigned? Clearly Empathy is not working properly on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, regardless of whether this is a bug in Empathy or Google changed something. This basically renders Empathy useless. Please fix.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

I've talked by email with an Empathy developer and he suggests this error can be a bug in telepathy-gabble (v0.8.12 in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS).

Could Ubuntu developers try to identify this bug?

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Pat Tjin (pattjin) wrote :

I was able to get my contacts list working again with this patch (I'm unsure if this is the complete (correct) fix, but it works fine for me):

--- telepathy-gabble-0.8.12/src/roster.c 2010-03-19 08:09:02.000000000 -0700
+++ telepathy-gabble-0.8.12.fix/src/roster.c 2011-10-17 13:49:52.859547598 -0700
@@ -1328,7 +1328,7 @@
           GabbleRosterItem *item;
           LmMessageNode *item_node = node_iter_data (j);

- if (strcmp (item_node->name, "item"))
+ if (strcmp (item_node->name, "ros:item"))
             {
               NODE_DEBUG (item_node, "query sub-node is not item, skipping");
               continue;

Revision history for this message
Norman Rasmussen (normanr) wrote :

I suspect this was actually due to fixes in wocky, perhaps http://cgit.freedesktop.org/wocky/commit/?id=969a12f4e13a46f0ccef3f125232811a32b94aa0 (Require nodes to always have a namespace).

I installed telepathy-gabble (0.9.15-1~ppa10.04+1) from the ppa mentioned above, and it fixed everything.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

This bug has alredy been reported in telepathy's bugzilla: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40276

Ubuntu developers, please fix this bug, since it has been confirmed by several Ubuntu users and it has also been reported in an official bugzilla's package

Revision history for this message
Steve Corbett (scorbett) wrote :

I also had this problem, and I can conform that adding "ppa:telepathy/ppa" to my software sources and then updating has fixed this problem for me on Ubuntu 10.04.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

WTF! I've opened Empathy and it shows all my Google talk's contacts, but I've not updated empathy nor telepathy-gabble.

Could someone please confirm the bug has been already fixed? Maybe Google's developers had the error on their side, and have fixed it.

Thanks!

Revision history for this message
Achilleas Koutsou (achilleas-k) wrote :

Confirmed on my side.

Contact list is working. No update was made. I hadn't bothered to check today until I saw the last comment.

Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS
Empathy 2.30.3

Revision history for this message
Cassapanco di Mogano (cassapanco) wrote :

I can confirm too.
All is working fine now without any update.

Ubuntu 10.04
Empathy 2.30.3

Revision history for this message
Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles) wrote :

I've confirmed it works with some co-workers, so I think this bug can be safely closed.

I'm also closing the bug I've opened in telepathy-gabble.

Many thanks for your confirmations :)

Changed in empathy (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
Revision history for this message
zcox (zcox522) wrote :

Confirmed that this works for me now too this morning. Big thanks to whoever fixed this.

Revision history for this message
Per Gustafsson (perjgus) wrote :

This was a bug on Google's end which has been fixed.

Revision history for this message
Stuart Rossiter (monsieurrigsby) wrote :

Just an update re #25 and #32. The Telepathy PPA updates appear to be causing some strangeness for me (some GoogleTalk contacts were always shown as offline when they were online) so, since this is now fixed for the base LTS version, I suggest people revert back to this.

I used ubuntu-tweak to make this painless (as per http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29584/safely-remove-ppas-and-roll-back-to-stable-versions-in-ubuntu). Otherwise, you need to find the full set of packages installed from the PPA, check the versions in official repos and do manual re-installs to these specific versions (a PITA).

Revision history for this message
jadi (jadijadi) wrote :

I have this problem on updated ubuntu 12.04 beta. I'm not using PPA and just testing beta ubuntu 12.04

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