Available updates menu isn't refreshed automatically

[Alin Andrei]

The available updates menu isn't refreshed automatically. If for instance:
-there are 3 updates available and after some time there are 2 more updates available, Indicator-Updatemanager will display only 3 updates
-if there are some updates available and I install them, the icon does turn gray so the refresh is working for the icon, but the Indicator-Updatemanager menu still displays "X Updates". In this case, when hovering the "X updates" menu item, the following error is displayed in the terminal:

(IndicatorUpdateManager:13182): LIBDBUSMENU-GLIB-WARNING **: About to Show called on an item wihtout submenus. We're ignoring it

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

I tried both of your situations and it worked for me.

What i did:
- Downgraded a package to an older version with synaptic -> The Icon changed to orange and there was one menu item in the submenu
- Downgraded an other package -> The icon remained orange, but there was an other menu item. Both packages in the submenu were correct.
- I used Execute to perform the upgrade. The icon turned gray and the menu says "No updates available". There is no submenu anymore. Also, there is no error in the terminal at all.

Which versions of the required packages to compile do you use? Do you have the latest tarball? Try downloading it from the "External downloads", it's easier to compile.

[Alin Andrei (nilarimogard)]

Yes, I've downloaded via "External downloads". I've compiled it in Natty. I've also tried it on a fresh Natty install in Virtualbox and the result was the same. Maybe I'm missing some dependencies (and the installation didn't failed due to missing deps), any idea which?

[Alin Andrei (nilarimogard)]

By the way, here is my test .deb:
32bit: https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/test/+files/indicator-updatemanager_0.1-1%7Ewebupd8%7Enatty5_i386.deb
64bit: https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/test/+files/indicator-updatemanager_0.1-1%7Ewebupd8%7Enatty5_amd64.deb

(debian source: https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/test/+files/indicator-updatemanager_0.1-1%7Ewebupd8%7Enatty5.tar.gz )

P.s.: For some reason, the gconf schema wasn't installed so I've created one manually and then install it from the deb postinst script.

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

Thank you for your effort!
This is very weird... It worked perfectly on my machine... I could reproduce your bug on a fresh Natty installation though. The only explanation is that there are missing dependencies, but I couldn't find out which ones.

I now use an obsolete method which results in GLib NullPointer warnings in the terminal (this seems to be a bug of the mono runtime), but it still does its job. So this is a temporary fix until I figure out what the real problem is. Feel free to test it.

[Alin Andrei (nilarimogard)]

I'm attaching a file that contains all the packages installed on my system (Natty 32bit) that have "mono", "cil" or "sharp" in their names (some might be duplicates). Maybe you can somehow compare it to your installed mono packages (you can use "sudo dpkg --get-selections > installed-applications.txt" to get a list of all installed packages) and see which one is missing on my system.

Also, I've tried the latest version from BZR and it still doesn't work for me (tested in Natty). Here is the terminal output:

indicator-updatemanager
Application started...
Checking with an interval of 30s

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_data: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_data: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_add_weak_pointer: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_data: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_data: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

(IndicatorUpdateManager:19068): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_add_weak_pointer: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

The fix worked for me, even though the GLib warnings keep showing up. Does the bug of your original post still occur? The external download is usually more recent than the BZR trunk.

Thanks for your list! I'll compare it with my installation and try to figure something out. I'll keep you posted...

In the meanwhile I've implemented notification support, at least some progress ;-)

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

Btw. did you forget the attachment? Missing the "edit" button :/

[Alin Andrei (nilarimogard)]

Ah yes, I forgot the attachment. Here it is now...

And yes, it's not just the warnings, the original bug still occurs too.

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

I now have the same mono/cil/sharp-packages on the 32-bit virtual natty and on my laptop. Still, the app works perfectly on my laptop. on the virtual machine however, the bug still exists. I really don't know what to do anymore... Also, when I comment out the whole submenu-part, the Menu seems not to get "repainted", even though I used all different show methods for the menu.
The only difference I now can think of is, that it depends on some non-mono-related package or on the architecture (I have 64-bit on my laptop)

[Alin Andrei (nilarimogard)]

The problem seems to be that the menu items are never destroyed ... maybe you can use this Tomboy patch as an example: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/36916702/04_app_indicator.patch or something... Unfortunately I've only created one AppIndicator and that was in Python so I can't be of too much help.

The weird part is now it works ok on my computer too, but still fails in VirtualBox. I really have no idea what made it work :/

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

Thanks for the link! I now tried deleting and rebuilding the entire menu like similar to how they made it in tomboy. that made it even worse. it seems that the menu doesn't get "repainted". I'm out of options here. The only reason i can think of is that it has to do with the architecture (it works on my 64-bit machine). an other explanation could be that it only works with Unity. I'm not working with unity on my virtual machine. But i can't verify this cause my laptop freezes when I try to run it with the "Ubuntu classic" option :/

[Alin Andrei (nilarimogard)]

I've tried it in VirtualBox, running Unity (11.04) and it still occurs so it doesn't seem to be Unity related...

[Jonas Frei (freijon)]

I completely rewrote the application in Vala. I've changed the package under "external downloads". You will have to copy the folders "ui" and "icons" to /usr/share/indicator-updatemanager (since I'm no expert in makefiles or creating debs). The bug doesn't occur on my virtual machine. Maybe you can spare some time and test it (once again).