Empathy doesn't remember favorites, chat logs when ~/.local is a symlink

[Jay S]

After upgrading to Oneiric, all of my Empathy favorites have been forgotten. Setting them again doesn't survive a logout/login cycle.

I now think this may be due to the fact that I keep my /home/jay/.local directory as a symlink to /var/jay/.local on my SSD (and the same with ~/.cache). This didn't used to be a problem in Natty, so I don't know what changed.

syslog shows these messages when I try to add a favorite or when i send/receive a message, respectively:

Oct 27 20:09:56 jay-desktop kernel: [112564.420709] type=1400 audit(1319760596.740:443): apparmor="DENIED" operation="open" parent=1 profile="/usr/lib/telepathy/telepathy-*" name="/var/jay/.local/share/telepathy-logger/favourite-contacts.txt" pid=8346 comm="telepathy-logge" requested_mask="wc" denied_mask="wc" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000

Oct 27 20:27:13 jay-desktop kernel: [113599.103628] type=1400 audit(1319761633.412:598): apparmor="DENIED" operation="mknod" parent=1 profile="/usr/lib/telepathy/telepathy-*" name="/var/jay/.local/share/<email address hidden>/20111028.log" pid=5324 comm="telepathy-logge" requested_mask="c" denied_mask="c" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000

I changed some permissions on the folders in /var/jay/.local (and applied to sub-folders, probably an awful idea) and the problem remained.

I adapted the instructions from this comment: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/telepathy-mission-control-5/+bug/816554/comments/4

adding "owner /var/jay/.local/share/telepathy*/ rw," and the like to my /etc/apparmor.d/usr.lib.telepathy file, then running:

sudo apparmor_parser -r /etc/apparmor.d/usr.lib.telepathy

Empathy is now successfully saving logs, even though @{HOME}/.local/share/telepathy*/ is a symlink to /var/jay/.local/share/telepathy*/

Is it the symlinking that is causing this problem? I assume that it is. Why does apparmor balk at this symlink?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: empathy 3.2.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic-pae 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Oct 14 18:48:13 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/empathy
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
SourcePackage: empathy
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-13 (0 days ago)
XsessionErrors:
 (SparkleShare:3997): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_str_has_suffix: assertion `str != NULL' failed
 (gwibber-service:3991): libindicate-WARNING **: Menu being changed when the indicator is visible. Listeners will NOT be notified of this change.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Alexandre Damien (alexandredamien)]

I sent the bug to Gnome Bugzilla : #662781

[Jay S (topdownjimmy)]

Alexandre, that bug has now been marked as a (resolved) duplicate of this bug (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=646707), which is not the same thing.

[Jay S (topdownjimmy)]

I think this is part of a larger problem. My chat logs are no longer getting saved, either.

syslog shows these messages when I try to add a favorite or when i send/receive a message, respectively:

Oct 27 20:09:56 jay-desktop kernel: [112564.420709] type=1400 audit(1319760596.740:443): apparmor="DENIED" operation="open" parent=1 profile="/usr/lib/telepathy/telepathy-*" name="/var/jay/.local/share/telepathy-logger/favourite-contacts.txt" pid=8346 comm="telepathy-logge" requested_mask="wc" denied_mask="wc" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000

Oct 27 20:27:13 jay-desktop kernel: [113599.103628] type=1400 audit(1319761633.412:598): apparmor="DENIED" operation="mknod" parent=1 profile="/usr/lib/telepathy/telepathy-*" name="/var/jay/.local/share/<email address hidden>/20111028.log" pid=5324 comm="telepathy-logge" requested_mask="c" denied_mask="c" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000

I changed some permissions on the folders in /var/jay/.local (and applied to sub-folders, probably an awful idea) and the problem remains.

[Jay S (topdownjimmy)]

It looks like this might be related to this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/telepathy-mission-control-5/+bug/819321

[Jay S (topdownjimmy)]

I now think this may be due to the fact that I keep my /home/jay/.local directory as a symlink to /var/jay/.local on my SSD. This didn't used to be a problem in Natty, so I don't know what changed.

[Jay S (topdownjimmy)]

Ok, here's what I did.

I adapted the instructions from this comment: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/telepathy-mission-control-5/+bug/816554/comments/4

adding "owner /var/jay/.local/share/telepathy*/ rw," and the like to my /etc/apparmor.d/usr.lib.telepathy file, then running:

sudo apparmor_parser -r /etc/apparmor.d/usr.lib.telepathy

Empathy is now successfully saving logs, even though @{HOME}/.local/share/telepathy*/ is a symlink to /var/jay/.local/share/telepathy*/

Is it the symlinking that is causing this problem? I assume that it is. Why does apparmor balk at this symlink?

[Phil Housley (undeconstructed)]

I see the no chat logs problem - I haven't tried favourites.

My ".local" is a symlink, but to the same drive. I set XDG_DATA_HOME=/home/phil/local/share, but some apps don't respect that so I have ".local" => "local" linked.

I'm using the same home dir as I had on 10.10, and my logs just stop the day I installed 11.10.

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug843894, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Jay S (topdownjimmy)]

I'm really skeptical that this is a duplicate of #843894. Are you positive? It sounds like they are describing different behaviors.

[Slight Slightly (slight--deactivatedaccount)]

This is almost certainly not a duplicate of #843894. Please remove the duplicate status.

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

removing as per demand of rporter

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

ohh got the duplicate
marking now duplicate thanks

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

so the people who are saying that i marked it wrong duplicate than you please see this bug in upstream
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=646707

in comment 3
[reply] [-] Comment 3 Guillaume Desmottes [reporter] [empathy developer] 2011-10-27 12:16:03 UTC
*** Bug 662781 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[reply] [-] Comment 4 Guillaume Desmottes [reporter] [empathy developer] 2011-12-14 15:20:32 UTC
*** Bug 666125 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
you first see this and than comment here that i marked it wrong.. thanks

[Bilal Shahid (s9iper1)]

open these bug number in upstream not in downstream :)