DBus errors on Command Line

[Stu Hood]

When I run `sudo update-manager` from the command line, some error output is sent to the command line::
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 `warning: could not initiate dbus`
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and then when I press Check, another error::
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 `could not send the dbus Inhibit signal: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.`
------------------

Additionally, when I run `update-manager` as an unprivileged user, I get a seperate error::
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 `Introspect error: The name org.freedesktop.UpdateManager was not provided by any .service files
no listening object (The name org.freedesktop.UpdateManager was not provided by any .service files)
Unhandled exception in thread started by <bound method MetaRelease.download of <MetaRelease object (UpdateManager+MetaRelease+MetaRelease) at 0xb68aa75c>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/UpdateManager/MetaRelease.py", line 167, in download
    f=open(self.METARELEASE_FILE,"w+")
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/home/stuhood/.update-manager/meta-release'`
------------------

The app works just fine, and I can get and install updates just fine in both cases, but I thought I ought to point this one out, since most people probably run update-manager from the menu/tray, and never see these.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

What is the output of:
$ ls -l ~/.update-manager/meta-release

Cheers,
 Michael

[Stu Hood (stuhood)]

> stuhood@stuhood-desktop:~$ ls -l ~/.update-manager/meta-release
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1636 2006-12-11 22:48 /home/stuhood/.update-manager/meta-release

[Stu Hood (stuhood)]

I've had the same /home partition since Dapper, so my meta-release file could be a hold out from an earlier version of update-manager... I've attached it.

[Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor)]

Do not care about the dbus message. They are only warnings. Dbus is used to find other running instances of update-manager.

Michael, did the former root-only-version of update-manager write to the user's and not to root's home dir?

[Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor)]

Oh, I haven't seen that the file was created two days ago :)

I think that you have mixed up your sudo configuration. It points to the wrong home directory.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

The code will first check
/var/lib/update-manager/meta-release

and only if that fails use $HOME (sudo doesn't change $HOME by default). What are the permissions of that file for you?

Thanks,
 Michael

[Stu Hood (stuhood)]

Michael: `/var/lib/update-manager/meta-release` does not exist on my system. The update-manager folder is there, but it is empty.

There is a meta-release file in `/root/.update-manager/` as well, and it is identical to the one in my ~.

------------------

Sebastian: I guess it is possible, but the most serious thing I have done to my system in the last year was to get a second hard drive, and move my /home to a partition on the new drive. If you think that is what caused the issue, then I'll just remove the root-owned meta-release file in my ~ and go about my business... heh.
Followed the instructions here: http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/01/29/move-home-to-its-own-partition/

[Peter Whittaker (pwwnow)]

There are several things going on in this bug report and I am tempted to file separate reports for some of them, so that we can track them properly. However, it would be best to have consensus as to the number of items and to separate reports....

Item 1: The dbus warning. From my understanding, this is because update-manager ends up being run as root, and the dbus process is being run as the user. More or less correct?

If running update-manager under sudo is going to cause problems, e.g., update-manager won't work properly, then there is definite bug - either update-manager should be fixed to refuse to work when real and effective UIDs are different, or update-manager should be fixed to work under this use case.

If the warning is harmless and everything will work, update-manager - or something - should be fixed so that the warning goes away. "Harmless warnings" are a great way to confuse less experienced or less OS savvy users (more on that below).

Item 2: The "introspect-error". I see this myself (when running "update-manager -c -d") and so far it seems harmless. However, it does say "error" and unexplained - yet harmless - errors are a great source of confusion and uncertainty for less computer savvy users.

This is especially true if we say that an officially supported upgrade path from Edgy to Feisty is to open a terminal and run "update-manager -c -d": If we say it is "the right to do" and it generates errors - no matter how harmless - our users will wonder whether we know what we are about.

The "the right to do" should generate errors ONLY if real errors occur!

Item 3: The crash. This seems the most serious issue. If it is an isolated case (a user reconfigured their system on their own and confused the application) then perhaps it isn't so serious after all. On the other hand, going forward we can expect naive system administration, and it would be good if the application was sufficiently robust to not dump core just 'cause it's confused.

My $0.02.

I volunteer to open the new reports, if we agree this is the correct course.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Item 1+3 are interconnected, see #81571 and #95599. They should (hopefully) be fixed now in bzr.

I think I have seen item 2 reported already.

I would be inclined to close this bugreport (but if someone can confirm that item 2 is a duplicate as well, that would be great).

Thanks,
 Michael

[Peter Whittaker (pwwnow)]

Marking as closed (rejected) based on the following: Items 1 and 3 are addressed by bug #81571 and bug #95599, while item 2 seems to have been addressed (or otherwise disappeared) - I updated one of laptops from Edgy to Feisty beta over the weekend using 'sudo "update-manager -c -d" and everything worked fine, no errors, no warnings, nothing but love.