Oneiric: 404 page when trying to buy something

[Michael Terry]

Binary package hint: software-center

When I click the Buy button in Oneiric, I got asked for my SSO username and password. Then after entering that, it brought me to a 404 page on ubuntu.com (embedded in software-center).

I tried again, on a different for-purchase app and this time did not get prompted for username/password (so must have been valid last time and saved), but still got the 404.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: software-center 4.1.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.39-3.9-generic 2.6.39
Uname: Linux 2.6.39-3-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed May 25 10:36:22 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110422)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: software-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thanks for your report.

Confirmed in Oneiric.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

btw the address requested by s-c is
https://software-center.ubuntu.com/subscriptions/en/ubuntu/oneiric/+new/?archive_id=commercial-ppa-uploaders%2Fworld-of-goo&arch=i386

s-c should not list the software if it is not available from the commercial ppa

[Gary Lasker (gary-lasker)]

Hi Michael, when you get a chance could you please retry this and let us know if this is still a problem for you? I am seeing the payment page correctly for World of Goo. There was a recent fix on the server side for bug 783896, and I'm wondering if maybe that problem was causing this problem as well. Thanks!

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

I still get it.

[Gary Lasker (gary-lasker)]

D'oh, of course you still get it, it's Oneiric! Sorry, I was missing the (blindingly) obvious. Indeed, the for purchase packages are not yet available in the Oneiric archives, and as in the Natty case, they likely won't be available until much later in the cycle.

As Jean-Baptiste mentions, indeed these items should not be appearing in the For Purchase section at all in this case.

[Gary Lasker (gary-lasker)]

For purchase items are correctly not appearing in Oneiric Software Center, and have not appeared there for quite a while now. Michael, could you please verify that you also no longer see them?

Many thanks!

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

I still see the 11.04 packages in my software-center For Purchase area.

[John Pugh (jpugh)]

The packages are showing up and are unavailable to purchase. I don't get a 404, however I do get a blank screen when I try to purchase a app such as SpaceChem.

[John Pugh (jpugh)]

Added the myapps portal since the apps need to either show up properly or not at all. Maybe a flag that allows visibility in a specific release is necessary?

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

There are no applications available for install in Oneiric. There are only the reinstall previously purchased apps available. These however should install myself and Brian between us have installed them all.

[John Pugh (jpugh)]

But according the Software Center desktop app there are applications such as SpaceChem, World of Goo, Clockwork Man, Braid, etc available in Oneiric. For starters there is not a "buy" or "install" button on the line as with other applications, however when you click "More info" there is a "buy" button and the "buy" sends you to pay.ubuntu.com but this then fails with a blank screen for me and a 404 for others.

So they do exist, but not really.

[Michael Nelson (michael.nelson)]

Hi John, the info that the dev portal provides to the client already includes which series each app is available for. You can see that the available apps for oneiric is empty:

https://software-center.ubuntu.com/api/2.0/applications/en/ubuntu/oneiric/i386/

while for natty, it lists quite a few:

https://software-center.ubuntu.com/api/2.0/applications/en/ubuntu/natty/i386/

I'm not sure whether the client is still pulling the natty apps, or whether our machines have cached the natty apps before the upgrade (as I can verify that I see them all available for purchase too), but I don't think this bug is valid for myapps - I'll mark it as invalid, but feel free to change that if there's more info.

I just tried the script that s-c uses to get the information from devportal (software-center-agent), and indeed it's finding an empty list for oneiric [1], so it must be that the for-purchase apps are still somehow cached in the client from natty?

[1]
{{{
$ /usr/share/software-center/update-software-center-agent --debug --ignore-cache
2011-09-23 12:12:22,102 - softwarecenter.backend.spawn_helper - DEBUG - running: '['/usr/share/software-center/piston_get_scagent_available_apps.py', '--ignore-cache', 'available_apps', 'en', 'oneiric', 'amd64']' as pid: '30321'
2011-09-23 12:12:23,192 - softwarecenter.backend.spawn_helper - DEBUG - got data for cmd: '['/usr/share/software-center/piston_get_scagent_available_apps.py', '--ignore-cache', 'available_apps', 'en', 'oneiric', 'amd64']'='[]'
2011-09-23 12:12:23,193 - softwarecenter.db.update - DEBUG - available: '[]'
}}}

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

Can I ask everyone do you see these from a natty to oneiric upgrade?

I have a fresh install here and it shows 0 paid for apps.

It may be that they have not been deleted due to a cache issue that doesn't delete apps if there are none there to overwrite the applications there is a bug for this that will be worked on for post O iirc, I will chase it up and add it here.

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

I couldn't find the bug so I have written a new one, bug 857268

Jon the blank page is an error that I highlighted. It appears that the error reporting system might not be completely transferred from gtk2 to gtk3 and should be fixed really soon. The error should of read similar to the gtk2 one of "oops something went wrong you've not been charged for this application" or words to that effect.

[Kiwinote (kiwinote)]

So I've fixed bug 857268 which should avoid this particular bug completely. Re not getting an error, it would *seem* that we aren't actually getting an error from the website? In the sense that when visiting [0] in the incognito window of chromium we first get a login page, but after that we're just served with a blank page with no errors afaics? This is precisely what s-c displays. In comparison to changing oneiric to natty in that url where we do get obvious error messages in the browser when we cancel things etc.

[0] https://software-center.ubuntu.com/subscriptions/en/ubuntu/oneiric/+new/?archive_id=commercial-ppa-uploaders%2Fworld-of-goo&arch=amd64

[Michael Nelson (michael.nelson)]

Hi Dave, if this current bug 788158 is "Oneiric: 404 page when trying to buy something", I'm not sure how the new bug 857268 is different? Or, now that Kiwinote has fixed the client so it no-longer displays non-purchasable apps in Oneiric, should we redefine this bug for software-center-agent to display the error correctly if USC ever displays non-purchasable apps again? IMO a 404 is the correct response for the web service to return if it gets asked to initiate a purchase for an app that doesn't exist in that series, but it could be much more descriptive.

[Michael Nelson (michael.nelson)]

Hi kiwinote, the blank page that you linked to above is a 404 (if you check the headers, or watch it with firebug) - we probably assumed initially that the client would check the http response, but I'm guessing you guys can't pick that up in the client as by that time you've already gone into "wait for title-change event" mode (as there could have been a login event prior also).

Anyway, we can easily update the 404 to display something human-readable, as well as include any event you need to communicate to USC that something went wrong (not that this should ever happen as the client won't display un-purchasable apps any more).

[John Pugh (jpugh)]

Dave - this is seen on upgrade from Natty to Oneiric so the theory of cache affecting visibility is plausible.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

This is fixed with the following code:

software-center (4.1.23.6) oneiric; urgency=low

  [ Kiwinote ] -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:59:33 +0200

  * softwarecenter/db/update.py:
    - update the sc-agent db even if there are no apps available (LP: #857268)
...
 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:59:33 +0200