CouchDB service fails to start

[Devin Shoemaker]

On a fresh Ubuntu 17.10 install (with updated packages or not) the CouchDB package from the official Ubuntu repos does not work. The CouchDB service fails to start, and continues to fail to start after restarting the service or restarting the computer. CouchDB also cannot be executed from the command line, resulting in an error. I have reported this to the official CouchDB GitHub, and the developers state that Ubuntu 17.10 is now shipping a version of Erlang that CouchDB doesn't support. The outputted error from attempting to run CouchDB from the command line, as well as the dialogue from the CouchDB developers, can be found here: https://github.com/apache/couchdb/issues/910

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: couchdb 1.6.0-0ubuntu8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-16.19-generic 4.13.4
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-16-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Nov 1 07:00:12 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-10-31 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Release amd64 (20171018)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: couchdb
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Jason Gerard DeRose (jderose)]

Devin,

Thanks for the bug report!

CouchDB 1.6.x doesn't work with the Erlang 20.0.4 packages in Artful. I've been working on CouchDB 2.1 packages for Artful for internal use at System76, but it's a much different beast in many ways and also has upstream packaging changes that make it very difficult (if not impossible) to get it into Ubuntu as an official package (even just in universe).

However, the just announced CouchDB 1.7.0 RC is promising:

https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/30162c3c859cf0dc66d489ae416a2e0e4f2fedecdf892b62c484abc7@%3Cdev.couchdb.apache.org%3E

I'm currently testing it. Assuming I don't hit any deal breakers, I'm going to try and get this package into Bionic, and might also be able to get it released in Artful as the current CouchDB 1.6.0 package isn't usable in Artful (as you know).

If you happen to spend any time testing 1.7.0, please let me know what your experience is.

[Jason Gerard DeRose (jderose)]

Also, if you're so inclined, I now have CouchDB 1.7.0 test packages for Artful here:

https://launchpad.net/~jderose/+archive/ubuntu/couchdb-1.7.0

[Devin Shoemaker (paranoidcoder)]

Awesome Jason, thank you for such a quick update. The 1.7.0 package you provided in your repo seems to be working well. While I haven't tested it extensively, it's loaded file and I can access the port.

[Jacob Mziya (jacobmziya)]

Thanks Jason for this one. It is working very well in Ubuntu 17.10. Tested it with all the features I need and all worked.

[Devin Shoemaker (paranoidcoder)]

Jason, do you have any plans to update the 1.7.0 RC1 to the official 1.7.1 build? Also, do you have any updates on whether the 1.7.x updates will be coming to the official Ubuntu 17.10 repos?