gvfs fuse does not wait on uploads - Cannot save file to FTP server (from Save dialog)

Bug #174212 reported by komputes
24
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Nautilus
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
OpenOffice
Invalid
Unknown
gvfs
Expired
Critical
gvfs (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Medium
Unassigned
Jaunty
Won't Fix
Medium
Unassigned
openoffice.org (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Jaunty
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Using Ubuntu 7.04

When trying to save a file onto a "connected" FTP server, gnome does not see the FTP server as an option to save files to (in the quick save menu - the same menu which lists your disks). When trying to add an FTP server shortcut to OpenOffice's quick-save dialog box, the application gives me a cryptic error. When I click "OK" the program freezes and needs a force quit or a "kill -9" to close.

Revision history for this message
Pedro Villavicencio (pedro) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description didn't include enough information. You may find it helpful to read "How to report bugs effectively" http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html. We'd be grateful if you would then provide a more complete description of the problem.
 We have instructions on debugging some types of problems. http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures
At a minimum, we need:
1. the specific steps or actions you took that caused you to encounter the problem,
2. the behavior you expected, and
3. the behavior you actually encountered (in as much detail as possible).
Thanks!

Changed in meta-gnome2:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

I also cannot rename the FTP server with a new "connection nickname" once on the desktop.

Although the freeze is specific to Open Office, I still can't get a program like gedit to save directly to FTP. This is a functionality that those two other operation systems have, and definitely one which is wanted on Ubuntu. The following is a screenshot of what happens when I try adding the FTP to the quick-save menu.

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

The following is OpenOffice writer crashing (frozen) when I try to add the FTP shortcut to the quick-save menu.

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

@Pedro

1. the specific steps or actions you took that caused you to encounter the problem,
a) Places>Connect to server
b) Enter valid FTP server specifications
c) Desktop link is created automatically
d) Create document in Open Office or gedit
e) Save file directly to FTP server [Cannot find FTP from save menu]
f) Tried dragging and dropping FTP to the quick-save (favorites) menu

2. the behavior you expected, and
a) I expected the servers I am connected to to be in the list of disks (since they are, in fact directories and should be represented as such in the GUI)
b) I expected to be able to drag and drop a link to a server into the quick-save/favorites menu

3. the behavior you actually encountered (in as much detail as possible).
a) FTP server was not added to the list
b) Open office crashed, gedit did not, either way, the file is still not able to be saved directly to FTP

Workaround: Save to local disk, drag file to ftp server. (This is a workaround, but if I am not able to write to disks it does not help much)

Hope This Helps

D

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

I was using Ubuntu 7.04 on a thin client for that particular error.
I just tried the same thing on Ubuntu 7.10 (desktop instalation) and found that.

1) The FTP was already in the quick-save/favorites list (That makes me happy)

BUT
2) I still could not save to it directly (see screenshot).

I'm getting this error: error access ftp://x@x.com:21 - Operation canceled

I assure you I have access to this FTP (as an administrator)

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

As you can see, I can access my FTP using gnome/nautilus with no problems. I can even write and delete files. Therefore you can throw out the idea that it is an invalid FTP address.

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

Seems to work on gedit on Ubuntu 7.10, but not OpenOffice on 7.10 (but I do not know about previous version of Ubuntu including 6.06 LTS ). Can anyone confirm if this works on 6.06 LTS.

description: updated
Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

Has been tested on 7.04, 7.10 and 8.04. Still having issues. Through troubleshooting I think OpenOffice may be the one causing this issue. Issue reported at http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=84463

komputes (komputes)
Changed in meta-gnome2:
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
alfred_nutile (alfred-rivervalleytechcollective) wrote : Re: Cannot save file to FTP server (from Save dialog)

Same flow here in Hardy.
1. use nautilus to connect to ftp server.
a. can drag files there
b. can edit (gedit) files there etc.
2. Open openoffice to create a file and save from within the dialog box ie Save As-->Point to the Folder/Mount in Nautilus and then all just freezes in OpenOffice come back 5 minutes later still frozen.
This happens on both anonymous and user/password.

The goal would be to let the end user save right to the ftp drive.
I can do this by mounting the drive ahead of time via curlftp but of course Nautilus via Open Office would be best.
Thanks

Revision history for this message
alfred_nutile (alfred-rivervalleytechcollective) wrote :

Ps.. this is the error message

Jorge Castro (jorge)
Changed in openoffice:
importance: Undecided → Unknown
status: New → Unknown
Revision history for this message
alfred_nutile (alfred-rivervalleytechcollective) wrote :

still happens in open office 3!!! and the new gnome vfs.
uuuuhg..

Changed in openoffice:
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
Pedro Villavicencio (pedro) wrote :

not a meta-gnome2 issue.

Changed in meta-gnome2:
status: New → Invalid
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in nautilus:
status: New → Invalid
Changed in meta-gnome2:
status: Invalid → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

I would like to test this out on Jaunty, but I am having trouble creating an ftp connection. Timeouts are the main issue, which causes the interface to be non-responsive and DBus.Errors being presented. Until the underlying nautilus-ftp client is fixed, I will be unable to confirm that this bug is fixed.

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

Actually, with determination, I was able to test this once without the nautilus-ftp client crashing on me. I was able to drag and drop a file to the ftp share, but any time I tried saving to the same location through OOo writer, I got the following error:

Error saving document Untitled1: Object not accessible. The object could not be accessed due to insufficient user rights.

This is still a bug, not sure why it is marked "Fix Released"; Chris?

Revision history for this message
Chris Cheney (ccheney) wrote :

With openoffice.org 1:3.0.1-7ubuntu1 this is no longer a bug in OOo it is a bug in 'gvfs' if you are still having problems. OOo now saves to the local filesystem using gio gvfs fuse and is not doing anything special like before. Please report bugs against that package if you are having trouble.

Thanks,

Chris Cheney

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

Hi Chris. Keep in mind that the error I have quoted above came from OOo and not nautilus. Relating bug to gvfs.

Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Chris Cheney (ccheney) wrote :

David,

And actually in the FTP case it could very well be your ftp server is buggy. There is a known bug in pureftpd that causes gvfs not to work properly. The pureftpd developers are planning on fixing it with their next release but there is no telling when the person running your ftp server will actually upgrade if they are in fact using that particular ftp server software. This seems to affect CPanel hosting servers as I have access to one of them.

Chris

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

gvfs was not written when this bug has been opened, open a new clear one if you have a gvfs issue

Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
importance: Undecided → Low
Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

> And actually in the FTP case it could very well be your ftp server is buggy.
> There is a known bug in pureftpd that causes gvfs not to work properly.

Chris, In fact I don't think this is an issue with gvfs or pureftpd. pureftpd may affect other bugs, but it is not the case here. I have tested it on vsftpd locally. OpenOffice still fails with the same error.

-Files can be written to folder via nautilus.
-Files can be saved through the gedit save dialogue.
-File cannot be saved from the OOo save dialogue.

I found, with more tests, that OOo does create a lock file,

cat /home/ftp/dropbox/.~lock.testsave.odt#
,ubuntu,default,28.03.2009 20:19,file:///home/ubuntu/.openoffice.org/3;

Chris can we schedule some software testing for "saving/editing OOo docs on remote filesystems". It would be worth testing this use case with smb, ftp, sftp and nfs as well. Please keep in mind that I am currently running these tests on both intrepid and jaunty. Please ping me if you are interested.

> If that case it is probably not a bug caused by gvfs.

You're correct seb. I don't think this problem is with gvfs since it only seems to affect OOo for now. If anything, it is the way OOo treats the remote file system.

Revision history for this message
komputes (komputes) wrote :

OK, a little more testing and research done. I looked up the oooforum site for ftp errors and found this workaround that seems to work:

Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org -> General.
Under Open/Save dialogs, check the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs.
Now when saving a document, for the filename, you can type a URL

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=2765

The only thing is, mounted drives/shares are not shown in that generic save window. I must type in `ftp://localhost`and then it works fine.

Sebastien, any idea why this runs into a problem when using the gnome save window?

Revision history for this message
Chris Cheney (ccheney) wrote :

Seb,

Did gnome-vfs not use what is now in gvfs ftp backend? Because the gvfs backend is clearly violating rfc 959. I'm marking this as triaged and will attach the upstream bug report. I'm sort of surprised that this ever worked considering that the ftp backend appears to be badly broken spec-wise.

Chris

Changed in gvfs:
status: Invalid → Triaged
Changed in gvfs:
status: Unknown → New
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in gvfs:
importance: Low → Medium
milestone: none → ubuntu-9.04
Revision history for this message
Chris Cheney (ccheney) wrote : Re: gvfs ftp backend violates rfc959 - Cannot save file to FTP server (from Save dialog)

This looks like it is probably a race condition.

If you do something like this:

open()
write()
fsync()
fstat()
close()

They all return before the write even finishes. This is most obvious when writing over slow connections. And they do not return any errors as well... This will cause programs checking the status of their writes via eg fstat() to think their writes failed since the fstat() is done even before the file is finished uploading and you will see no file or a partially uploaded file instead.

Revision history for this message
Chris Cheney (ccheney) wrote :

However, when using something like "cat foo | gvfs-save ftp://somewhere ; gvfs-ls ftp://somewhere" gvfs actually blocks the next command from completing until the gvfs-save is done. So this appears to be a bug in the fuse support.

Changed in gvfs:
status: New → Incomplete
Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu Jaunty):
assignee: Ubuntu Desktop Bugs (desktop-bugs) → Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in gvfs:
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

Not a release blocker, but would make a fine SRU target.

Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu Jaunty):
milestone: ubuntu-9.04 → none
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu Jaunty):
milestone: none → jaunty-updates
Changed in openoffice:
status: New → Invalid
Chris Cheney (ccheney)
Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu Jaunty):
assignee: Chris Cheney (ccheney) → nobody
Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu):
assignee: Chris Cheney (ccheney) → nobody
Changed in gvfs:
importance: Unknown → Critical
Revision history for this message
Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex) wrote :

Jaunty reached end-of-life on 23 October 2010. The bug is marked as "triaged" in later versions of Ubuntu

Changed in gvfs (Ubuntu Jaunty):
milestone: jaunty-updates → none
status: Triaged → Won't Fix
Changed in gvfs:
status: Confirmed → Expired
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