Daemon autostart failed - cdemu no longer launches after latest update

[Gregor]

Everything was working fine until latest update.

a popup window is displayed at boot:
Daemon autosart failed.Error: g-io-error-quark:Error calling StartServiceByName for net.sf.cdemu.CDEmuDaemon: Timeout was reached (24)

starting it in console i get only this:
gcdemu

(gcdemu:4697): Gtk-WARNING **: 10:06:05.925: Theme parsing error: gtk.css:68:35: The style property GtkButton:child-displacement-x is deprecated and shouldn't be used anymore. It will be removed in a future version

(gcdemu:4697): Gtk-WARNING **: 10:06:05.925: Theme parsing error: gtk.css:69:35: The style property GtkButton:child-displacement-y is deprecated and shouldn't be used anymore. It will be removed in a future version

(gcdemu:4697): Gtk-WARNING **: 10:06:05.925: Theme parsing error: gtk.css:73:46: The style property GtkScrolledWindow:scrollbars-within-bevel is deprecated and shouldn't be used anymore. It will be removed in a future version
AppIndicator tray icon mode

the icon appears at boot but except for launching the about window or quitting, the New device option is grey.

System: Kubuntu 18.04.2
Kernel: 5.4.0-72-generic

Everything still works fine on the other pc which has Kubuntu 18.04.1 and uses 4.15.0-142-generic.

[Rok Mandeljc (rok-mandeljc)]

With the latest release, we've switched to systemd-based daemon activation. You should be able to get the daemon's error log via: journalctl --user-unit cdemu-daemon

[Gregor (gregor-g)]

i exited. and started the application. It shows with same error in window. so then i ran the command to see the log:
journalctl --user-unit cdemu-daemon
-- Logs begin at Fri 2020-01-03 21:24:04 CET, end at Sat 2021-05-01 13:01:07 CEST. --
-- No entries --

That's all there is. Should i be using some debug option to log activity? The icon in taskbar shows up, but "New device" is still greyed out.

i also tried right clicking the .iso file in app manager and then clicking open with gcdemu. nothing happens. also nothing is logged.

[Rok Mandeljc (rok-mandeljc)]

> i exited. and started the application. It shows with same error in window.

gcdemu is just a front-end, and the error is caused by the daemon (backend) failing to (auto)start.

> journalctl --user-unit cdemu-daemon
> -- Logs begin at Fri 2020-01-03 21:24:04 CET, end at Sat 2021-05-01 13:01:07 CEST. --
> -- No entries --

What version of cdemu-daemon are you using, anyway?

Can you try starting it manually from the terminal, by running 'cdemu-daemon' (as regular user)?

[Gregor (gregor-g)]

starting the daemon manually as user seems to make it work (just need ot leave terminal open and restart the GUI). i get this in terminal after starting daemon manually:

cdemu-daemon
Starting CDEmu daemon with following parameters:
 - config file: (null) (exists: 0)
 - num devices: 1
 - control device: /dev/vhba_ctl
 - audio driver: null
 - bus type: session
 - default CDEmu debug mask: 0x0
 - default libMirage debug mask: 0x0

and the device can be added (after restarting the GUI).

Version in Muon for package cdemu-daemon is showing: 3.2.5-1ubuntu1-bionic1-ppa1

same version is also for packages cdemu-client and gcdemu.

[Rok Mandeljc (rok-mandeljc)]

I managed to reproduce this in kubuntu 18.04 VM (but not in the ubuntu 18.04 one). I think the problem is that kubuntu does not install dbus-user-session package by default, and that seems to be required for user units. Can you check if you have that package installed, and if not, install it and restart the system.

[Gregor (gregor-g)]

i could not find that package, but dbus package and all dependencies are installed.

Also we received a small update yesterday and now it is working fine.

[Rok Mandeljc (rok-mandeljc)]

Yeah, I added dbus-user-session to cdemu-daemon package's dependencies. So if it works now, you were indeed missing that package, and it was installed by the update.

EDIT: fixed dbus-service-session -> dbus-user-session to avoid confusion in case someone stumbles across this later.