dmedia-import crashes in 11.10 beta

[David Green]

When I try to import a folder using dmedia-import on 11.10 beta, it doesn't work. The indicator icon and notifications don't show and it doesn't even create a ~/.dmedia folder. I get the following traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/dmedia-import", line 71, in <module>
    action = client.start_import(base, options.extract)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dmedia/gtkui/client.py", line 223, in start_import
    return self._call('StartImport', base, extract)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dmedia/gtkui/client.py", line 140, in _call
    method = self.proxy.get_dbus_method(name, dbus_interface=IMPORT_IFACE)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dmedia/gtkui/client.py", line 135, in proxy
    self._proxy = self._conn.get_object(self._bus, '/')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 244, in get_object
    follow_name_owner_changes=follow_name_owner_changes)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 246, in __init__
    self._named_service = conn.activate_name_owner(bus_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 183, in activate_name_owner
    self.start_service_by_name(bus_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 281, in start_service_by_name
    'su', (bus_name, flags)))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 630, in call_blocking
    message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process /usr/lib/dmedia/dmedia-importer-service exited with status 1

[Michael Chang (thenewme91)]

jderose is already aware of this; I believe we think it's caused by problems with couchdb and erlang on 11.10 beta (see lp:817656)

[Manish Sinha (मनीष सिन्हा) (manishsinha)]

Why is ~/.dmedia being created? What is it for? Data? If it is for data why isn't XDG specs being followed?

If it is data, then it should be in $XDG_DATA_HOME which equals to ~/.local/share

[Jason Gerard DeRose (jderose)]

David, did you install from ppa:novacut/daily? Like Michael said, this might be the issue with CouchDB 1.0.1 in Oneric. But if you installed from the Novacut Daily PPA, it would have pulled in the experimental CouchDB package I built from this merge proposal:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/couchdb/+bug/817656

That aside, I've been encountering some strange DBus issue under Oneiric. Earlier in the month, dmedia was working fine, but then some updates in Oneiric started causing DBus problems that I still haven't tracked down. In theory the classic python-dbus bindings should work alongside PyGI, but it sure seems like they aren't playing nice.

[Jason Gerard DeRose (jderose)]

David, I think the best way to solve this is as part of the core re-factor, which I've got a detailed plan for now:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/dmedia/+bug/837060/comments/3

Also, as all 3 of my favorite dmedia/filestore developers have chimed in on this bug, what do you guys thing of the re-factor plan I proposed in that comment above?

[Jason Gerard DeRose (jderose)]

I'll make sure this is no longer an issue when I bring the importer back up in 11.10

[Jason Gerard DeRose (jderose)]

David,

So some things are still in flux after Python3 migration, plus the way dmedia import works has changed somewhat. So I was wondering if you could try two things for me, and assuming they work, I'll mark this bug as fixed:

1) There is a new command-line tool `dmedia-migrate` that will import any directory, so if you could try something like this:

  dmedia-migrate ~/Videos/

2) The dmedia importer now must be explicitly started rather than starting automatically based on the nautilus mime type (which you so nicely provided). In part this is to work around Nautilus not having a mime type that would allow us to automatically import from SD cards with audio from Zoom H4n recorders and similar. Anyway, if you could fire up dmedia-gtk (should be able to find from Dash) and then click "Start Importer". Now it will import any cards you insert till you "Stop Importer". So if you could give that at try too, would be awesome!