Blank incoming messages

[Darío Silva Morán]

I keep receiving notifications for new incoming messages, by when I click the bubble in the notification area to see the message, a blank chat window opens.
The message is actually received correctly, since when I close the window and open it again (by starting a new chat with the sender), the text of the message appears in the recent log (I mean, in the chat window I've just opened).

This problem seems to happend with every account I have configured. Protocols used are: msn, gtalk, facebook chat, yahoo, icq. I mostly chat using the first two accounts.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: empathy 3.2.0.1-0ubuntu1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-14.23-generic 3.0.9
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-14-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Jan 5 16:40:57 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/empathy
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
SourcePackage: empathy
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-16 (81 days ago)
XsessionErrors: (jupiter:1684): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_thaw_toplevel_updates_libgtk_only: assertion `private->update_and_descendants_freeze_count > 0' failed

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

* Is this reproducible?
* If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?
 and please attach the empathy chat log file with the bug report you can get it from help==> debug menu.

[Darío Silva Morán (dariosm)]

Hi Muhammad, I cannot reproduce the bug by myself. I really tried, many times, taking into account some suspicious I had, but sometimes the bug occurs and some other times not.
For instance, I suspected by closing every window, even the contact list, when a new incoming message arrives only the notification becomes visible but the chat window would open blank (this is actually what happens sometimes, but unfortunately not always).
At this point, is highly unpredictable, but extremely frequent.

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

its not a empathy chat log its mission control log attach the demanded log. try to reproduce it and than save that log and attach it.

[Darío Silva Morán (dariosm)]

my fault
I'll attach the chat log once the issue occurs again

[Darío Silva Morán (dariosm)]

I hope this is the propper log file.
The event ocurred today (Jan 09) at 11:38:56, log line 919. Seems the error reported is: "ignoring message without body; no existing channel".

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

Thank you for taking time in filing the bug to make ubuntu better.
 can you confirm this with with empathy 3.3.4 and please attach the empathy chat log file thanks for these log file but they are not use full for the upstream bug.

[Darío Silva Morán (dariosm)]

Ok Bilal, I'll try to install the empathy version you mentioned, but I think a tried previously installing it from source, and finding some compiling complications. If there is any trusted how-to to install empathy from source on Ubuntu 11.10, I'll be grateful if you post it for me.

Regarding the logs Muhammad asked, is there any way to find out what's happening in the official version bundled in Ubuntu? (3.2.0.1)

[Darío Silva Morán (dariosm)]

I could upgrade to empathy 3.3.3 through ppa:telepathy/ppa for oneiric, 3.3.4 seems not to be available for upgrade.
I'll wait for the issue to occur, but for now a have a problem with msn contacts (no contact could be created, as I read from the logs), but that's a different problem so I will not include any logs about it here for the sake of the thread.

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

empathy 3.3.4 is available https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy
and more questions you can contact us on gimp.org.at (telepathy channel) on irc.freenode

[Guillaume Desmottes (cassidy)]

I receveid a log of this bug but it appeared to be a telepathy-butterfly bug. I suggest you to switch to telepathy-haze instead as butterfly is not supported any more.

If you manage to reproduce it with another connection manager please mail me dbus-monitor logs.

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

needed telepathy-hazes and dbus-monitor logs as cassidy suggested,,
cassidy a duplicate i have right now bug#944149
and i have also seen may be 2 more dups in the bug list that needs search.

[Jim Rorie (jfrorie)]

Another data point, as the bug I opened appears to a dup of this one. I'm seeing the same problem under gtalk (lib gabber?) It appears when I attempt to activate empathy off the messaging menu.

I am currently running Precise Beta, tho.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for empathy (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Jim Rorie (jfrorie)]

I just experienced this yesterday.

Can you give the name and location of the logs you need. Dbus is dmesg.log?

[Simon Eisenmann (longsleep)]

I have this issue since updating from Lucid to Precise. Even switched to Pidgin because of this. I have no realy clue why it happens, but it seems to be related to multiple open empathy windows on multiple desktops and then receiving a message from somebody where you have already a window open on another screen. Then it never opens a new window (if i press the indicator), nor it switches the desktop to the window. When i mange to find the window manually, i only see it empty.

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

if you receive this type of message than see in the help debug menu you see the empathy chat log go there save it and attach it here .

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for empathy (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Luke Faraone (lfaraone)]

I've verified this behaviour also exists on trusty, via the same mechanism as described by ~jfrorie in #15.

The issue can be worked around by closing and reopening the chat.

[CrusaderAD (crusaderad-gmail)]

First reported over 2 years ago? I can confirm this still occurs in Ubuntu 14.04 32bit as of May 29th 2014. The only work around is to close the window and re-open the conversation. This is a big problem. Should this be reported to the Gnome developers? I've used empathy in Gnome and other distros without this issue.

[Maduka Jayalath (maduka-jayalath)]

Same here this bug is still there in Ubuntu 14.04 64bit