Crash on startup: TypeError: getattr(): attribute name must be string

[maxx]

The bug was first reported here:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=725821

It is still happening with the latest 0.8.0 release of gnome-activity-journal as well as a current checkout from bzr. This is with zeitgeist 0.8.1.

The full output when attempting to run gnome-activity-journal is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/gnome-activity-journal", line 88, in <module>
    from src.external import CLIENT, CLIENT_VERSION
  File "/usr/share/gnome-activity-journal/src/external.py", line 88, in <module>
    CLIENT_VERSION = CLIENT.get_version()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/zeitgeist/client.py", line 450, in get_version
    return [int(i) for i in self._iface.version()]
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/zeitgeist/client.py", line 207, in version
    self.INTERFACE_NAME, "version")
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/zeitgeist/client.py", line 105, in _disconnection_safe
    meth = getattr(self.__iface, method_name)
TypeError: getattr(): attribute name must be string

[Martijn Faassen (faassen)]

A pdb shows that method_name is a dbus.proxies._ProxyMethod. This seems to be a callable itself.

I think there's another bug lurking here though, as the meth it tries to getattr is never actually used. Maybe it should be returned? Not knowing what is really going on I tried various things, but to no avail - I only get crashes later on
in get_version.

[Martijn Faassen (faassen)]

Maybe the getattr without results is intentional; I see some __getattr__ hacking in this class. I'd get rid of that __getattr__ if I were you, as it's likely to invite more hard to debug issues.

[Martijn Faassen (faassen)]

Okay, I hacked my way into getting a GUI. Here's my hack around line 105 (the place of the original traceback). Replace the line:

                       meth = getattr(self.__iface, method_name)

with this:

                        import dbus.proxies
                        if not isinstance(method_name, dbus.proxies._ProxyMethod):
                            meth = getattr(self.__iface, method_name)
                        else:
                            meth = method_name
                        return meth(*args, **kwargs)

this along with the scary __getattr__ (which is already there but which I criticized before) will make things work at least enough to make the GUI appear on Fedora 15.

I'm not proposing this as a real patch, as I have no idea what I'm doing. I have the feeling that there was a slow accumulation of magic in this class probably intended to make programming easier, but now pretty scary to me (and leading to odd bugs like this).

[Siegfried Gevatter (rainct)]

Hi,

This problem is fixed in Zeitgeist 0.8.1.1 (the particular commit, in case you're curious, is http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~zeitgeist/zeitgeist/trunk/revision/1789).