account creation wizard not showing in CLI-only version (trusty+)

[lioncub]

Ubuntu 14.04
$ dpkg -l twinkle
ii twinkle 1:1.4.2-4 amd64 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) SIP Phone

Not started (show):
$ twinkle
Critical: Cannot open file for reading: /home/lioncub/.twinkle/twinkle.cfg

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles)]

Also, if you copy your profile from another machine (in my case, I took my profile from another computer with Ubuntu 12.04) and try to run it, it seems to run properly, but just in console mode, no GUI in shown:

$ twinkle
ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1667:(_snd_pcm_hw_open) Invalid value for card

Critical: Cannot open ALSA driver for PCM playback: No such file or directory

ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1667:(_snd_pcm_hw_open) Invalid value for card

Critical: Cannot open ALSA driver for PCM playback: No such file or directory

Warning: Cannot access the speaker (ALSA: plughw:2,0).
Cannot access the microphone (ALSA: plughw:2,0).

Twinkle 1.4.2, February 25 2009
Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Michel de Boer

Users:
* USERNAME
    USER <SIP_INFO>

Local IP: 255.255.255.255

USERNAME: registering phone...

Twinkle>
USERNAME: registration succeeded (expires = 3600 seconds)
Registrar Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 14:50:23 GMT

I've changed some info, due to privacy reasons, but you can still see it registers ok with the SIP server and I can call this machine and ring tone sounds, but no GUI at any momment...

Maybe a problem with QT libraries?

[Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles)]

Problem seems to come from the Debian version of the package: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=737895

I've compared dependencies in both versions, 1.4.2-4 and 1.4.2-2 and the most significative difference in both versions is that 2-2 depends on libqt3-mt (which seems to be a base library for all Qt-based applications) but 2-4 doesn't...

Maybe is this a clue for solving it?

[Mike Durham (mdurhamesq)]

It installs and runs perfectly if you change the repo (temporarily) to 12.04
Then lock this version in Synaptic.

[Michael Rose (hanibah)]

Mint 17rc, based on Ubuntu 14.04 exhibits the same symptoms:
Twinkle runs and registers with the sip server, but no graphical user interface is available.

Twinkle works ok in Mint 13, based on Ubuntu 12.04

[proofNot (b.r.o.w.n.i.e.)]

Here is instruction how to fix it on ubuntu 14.04 http://blog.hillbrecht.de/2014/05/07/twinkle-soft-phone-on-kubuntu-14-04-trusty-tahr/

It really helps me!

[Daniel Mustieles (daniel-mustieles)]

Thanks for the tip Yuran, but it's not a valid final solution, just a temporary workaround.

As said in the post, there is a problem with package dependencies, an that's what must be fixed.

Cheers!

[Slingshot (slingshot)]

No GUI for me either on
cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Although with .twinkle folder copied from my old 12.04 install it works in commandline. Not very effective without GUI though.

[Stephen Michael Kellat (skellat)]

Adding this serious upstream bug from Debian for tracking: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=754046

[Stephen Michael Kellat (skellat)]

And the Debian maintainer wants somebody else to adopt this: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=738469

[Stephen Michael Kellat (skellat)]

And a separate breakage in building Debian-side: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=746054

[Evger (evger)]

Package not install all dependencies, packageprecise in precise 12.04 repository works fine in 14.04

[Njaramba (tkinyua)]

Thanks Evger. Was this a fresh install or did you follow any of the tips given earlier in the comments?

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Here's what's going on:

Twinkle is a very old program with a dead upstream. It relies on the obsolete Qt3 UI and was thusly dropped from Debian on 2012-05-24. The current maintainer reintroduced it by building a CLI-only version. It is usable for people like me who have a working configuration. But it will not run new users through the account setup process. The configuration needs to be provided in some other way.

It is unclear if Twinkle can be sustained without an active upstream.

[Ronald Duncan (ronaldduncan)]

I have had a problem with the CLI version where it would not dial numbers. I just did a clean install and upgrade to 14.04 and now there is no UI. Lucky I had my config but I have not yet had time to test with this version and the CLI.

NO ui is a major bug, and it should not have been released. The fix is making QT3 work/keeping qt3 since it was working, not scrapping any/all apps that work on QT3.

Arch have managed to maintain a qt3 package ??

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/qt3/

[Ronald Duncan (ronaldduncan)]

Just created an arch VM and twinkle works fine on arch using the qt3 package. ( You have to build the qt3 package and twinkle ) but this is straightforward. Just have a few cups of coffee whilst qt3 goes through all the compiler warnings.

The arch build files just work for both qt3 and twinkle with out any modification/patching.

It should be straight forward to resurect the qt3 package that Twinkle depends upon, since this is still working in the older distributions and runs fine on a modern kernal and set of dependancies under arch.

[John Rose (johnaaronrose)]

Not sure if this is same bug. I installed twinkle package from Ubuntu Trusty repos. I'm using standard 64 bit Ubuntu Trusty. However, when I start it, I get:
john@Desktop:~$ twinkle
Critical: Cannot open file for reading: /home/john/.twinkle/twinkle.cfg

There seems to be no twinkle.cfg file created: john@Desktop:
john@desktop:~$ ls .twinkle
 tmp twinkle.lck twinkle.log twinkle.log.old