Unable to establish an ytalk chat

[J. Javier Maestro]

Binary package hint: ytalk, talk

1.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10

2.

$ apt-cache policy ytalk
ytalk:
  Installed: 3.3.0-5
  Candidate: 3.3.0-5
  Version table:
 *** 3.3.0-5 0
        500 http://mirrors.gandi.net karmic/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

3.

Right after apt-get install ytalk, I wanted to open a chat connection between 2 users in the same server (username1 is jjmaestro, username2 is map). Both users have executed 'mesg y' and both receive the talk message to join the chat.

I expect that when jjmaestro executes 'talk map', right after receiving the invitation to do so, the talk session should open.

4.

When any of them tries to complete the connection after receiving the invitation, nothing works.

Furthermore, when jjmaestro starts the talk, he cannot close the window with Ctrl-C. It just sits there 'Waiting for connection...' and he must Ctrl-Z, ps, and kill the PID :-/

NOTES:

I think this bug is linked to usernames longer than 8 chars. Long time ago, I did a very dirty hack because, although everybody seemed to think that long usernames were supported, I could not use ytalk.

Apparently, talkd returns an error message when receiving an old talk packet and this breaks ytalk (or something like that).

I will investigate further tomorrow. For the moment, my ooooold dirty hack is attached.

[Patrick Hayes (patrick-d-hayes)]

I can confirm that this bug exists as of Ubuntu 10.10, and does not affect usernames shorter than 8 characters.