Linux: Manager crashes when switching between views

[RichardHaselgrove]

Describe the bug
Launching the Manager in simple view, and switching to advanced view, works.
Launching in Advanced view, and making a double switch (from advanced to simple view, and again from simple to advanced view) crashes the Manager. No warning, no dialog, no messages - it just disappears.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Open Manager
2. Switch views once or twice, depending where you start from

Expected behavior
No crash.

System Information

• OS: Linux Mint 20.3 Una
• BOINC Version: v7.20.0 pre-release from @LocutusOfBorg PPA

Additional context
Found while testing for #4783. The wxWidgets debug alert doesn't appear in Linux, but this does happen.

[AenBleidd]

@RichardHaselgrove, are you able to reproduce this on master with latest build artifacts?

[RichardHaselgrove]

Um. It's not the same, but...

Tested with linux_manager-with-webview_1bbc873314e287cc924fdac5e11f0617132fe668.zip from #4778 from yesterday. The 'About' dialog shows

It doesn't crash, but simple view displays as

It should be

or thereabouts.

Note that @LocutusOfBorg's PPA is an automatically updated test tool, intended for exactly this sort of work: but it is based on certain Debian tweaks to the original BOINC code. In particular, certain menu options in the Manager are removed: there are no separate options for 'minimise window' and 'exit application': 'Close window' (ctrl-W) in advanced view becomes a synonym for 'exit application'.

[AenBleidd]

This is exactly the reason why I hate wxWidgets.
@RichardHaselgrove, I'll try to check it out and send you some executables for testing because I have no linux system to test it by myself.

[Vulpine05]

Looking at wxWidgets website, they updated to 3.1.7 just last week. One item in their changelog is: "And many, many bugs fixes, including for the regressions in 3.1.6."

Is it possible by using the most current version of wxWidgets this may fix itself?

As a side note (for my curiosity and lack of understanding), why is Linux's (LocutusOfBorg's PPA) using the stable version (3.0.x) of wxW and Windows uses the development (3.1.x) version?

[AenBleidd]

As a side note (for my curiosity and lack of understanding), why is Linux's (LocutusOfBorg's PPA) using the stable version (3.0.x) of wxW and Windows uses the development (3.1.x) version?

Mainly because stable version is 2 years old and doesn't contain important fixes for HighDPI displays support on Windows OS

Is it possible by using the most current version of wxWidgets this may fix itself?

Need to be tested. I'll check this. Thanks for the hint

[Dave-catcher]

As a side note (for my curiosity and lack of understanding), why is Linux's (LocutusOfBorg's PPA) using the stable version (3.0.x) of wxW and Windows uses the development (3.1.x) version?

Mainly because stable version is 2 years old and doesn't contain important fixes for HighDPI displays support on Windows OS

Is it possible by using the most current version of wxWidgets this may fix itself?

Need to be tested. I'll check this. Thanks for the hint

On my Ubuntu22.04 box, I have built both 7.20.0 and 7.21.0, the latter in a VM against 3.0.5 version of wxWidgets and both seem to perform normally. Which seems strong evidence that that is where the problem lies.

[CharlieFenton]

Is it possible by using the most current version of wxWidgets this may fix itself?

Need to be tested. I'll check this. Thanks for the hint

Since the Simple View has worked this way for years, I think the warning was incorrect. I will be curious whether the warning still occurs with wxWidgets 3.1.7. Please let me know.

[AenBleidd]

@LocutusOfBorg, is there anything that prevents you from building 7.20.0 with wxWidgets 3.1.6?

[LocutusOfBorg]

Hello, this is the reason
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=919903

[Vulpine05]

It looks like we have a new stable release that is about to emerge: https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/releases/tag/v3.2.0-rc1

[AenBleidd]

@Vulpine05, I don't feel safe to upgrade to wxWidgets 3.2.0. BOINC Manager is tested with 3.1.* for Windows and OSX. Upgrading to 3.2.0 will require a new round of testing that I'd like to avoid and not delay 7.20.1 release of BOINC.
I plan to check why it's crashing on wxWidgets 3.0.4 and make a linux-only fix, and later make next major release of BOINC with new wxWidgets. Otherwise it might take another couple of months just to test new wxWidgets and fix possible issues (and there were a lot of fixes that we made for Windows after upgrading from 3.0.* to 3.1.6

[AenBleidd]

@LocutusOfBorg,could you please tell me what version of wxwidgets was used to build BOINC release 7.18.1 for Linux?
@RichardHaselgrove, by any chance, are you able to reproduce this issue on older build of BOINC for Linux (any old one from the PPA)? If no - what is the version of wxwidgets shown there in About dialog?
Thank you both in advance.

[RichardHaselgrove]

A bit difficult. I run the PPA on an automatic 'notify me of the most recent update when available' basis, and install them at interesting or convenient moments. I haven't tried to roll back to previous versions, and at this moment I wouldn't know where to start.

I'll do some thinking and reading in the morning, but it may not be quick.

[AenBleidd]

@RichardHaselgrove, this is not urgent, so please take your time and feel free to do that when it's most convenient to you. Thank you very much.

[LocutusOfBorg]

wxwidgets is 3.0.5

[AenBleidd]

@LocutusOfBorg, but 7.20.0 is built with wxwidgets 3.0.4. Why did you downgrade?

[AenBleidd]

@LocutusOfBorg, btw, was 7.18.1 build with WebView support or without it ?

[LocutusOfBorg]

boinc is built with system wxwidgets3.0.

and its built with this version:
bionic 3.0.4+dfsg-3
focal 3.0.4+dfsg-15build1
impish 3.0.5.1+dfsg-2
jammy 3.0.5.1+dfsg-4
kinetic 3.0.5.1+dfsg-4

I always build with webview support.

[RichardHaselgrove]

Well, I've had a bit of a poke around, and found where installation packages are cached:

But only the current working version is there - no older builds. This one from 27 June still says it uses wxWidgets 3.0.4, and doesn't yet have the skins folder in the package.

I've also had a look round the public view of https://launchpad.net/~costamagnagianfranco/+archive/ubuntu/boinc, but I can't see any past builds there, either (they might exist in a 'registered users only' area, but I don't have access). So it'll be hard to work out when this bug entered the system.

[talregev]

Ok, I just checked this on BOINC Manager 7.16.17 (on Ubuntu bionic) built with wxWidgets 3.0.4 and it has the same crash. So this is not a new issue thus should not be a release blocker. Currently I see two ways of fixing this:

1. Wait for wxWidgets 3.2.0 release. If it will not be available on Ubuntu 20.04 and lower, then goto option 2
2. Force build BOINC Manager for wxWidgets 3.0.* without WebView support.
   This will require additional testing, and thus could wait for BOINC 7.20.2 or BOINC 7.22.0 since there are a lot of other issues related to BOINC Manager SimpleGUI that are present in our releases since a while.

When they will upgrade to 3.2.* wxwidgets, most likely they will not go backward on ubuntu versions.
You cannot force anyone to use wxWidgets 3.0.* without WebView support.
Debian maintainers can have patch fix for your enforcement in the code, and still compile it with wxwidgets with webview as they like.

This is an old bug across boinc linux versions. We didn't pay attention for linux boinc as we should. The fact that we found about the bug just recently, mean that boinc linux users living with this bug, and some is unaware of it.
So we should accept this bug as known issue on old boinc linux.

[AenBleidd]

Debian maintainers can have patch fix for your enforcement in the code, and still compile it with wxwidgets with webview as they like.

If this will fix the issue with the crash - but do they need to do that?

[talregev]

Debian maintainers can have patch fix for your enforcement in the code, and still compile it with wxwidgets with webview as they like.

If this will fix the issue with the crash - but do they need to do that?

And create other issues that we don't aware of them yet?
And fix an issue that is not critical? Even if it a crash, you need to do rare action many time. this is not usually how users use our manager.
That why my opinion is to change this issue to known issue for old linux boinc manager.

[AenBleidd]

And create other issues that we don't aware of them yet?

Please read my message carefully. I said that such a change will require additional testing, so this will definitely not be just patched and dropped without proper testing and fixing new issues.

[talregev]

And create other issues that we don't aware of them yet?

Please read my message carefully. I said that such a change will require additional testing, so this will definitely not be just patched and dropped without proper testing and fixing new issues.

I read it. I know it will be with additional checking and testing. I say we shouldn't need to spend our resources to check and test different ui and go backward just for this bug.

[AenBleidd]

I say we shouldn't need to spend our resources to check and test different ui and go backward just for this bug.

We can discuss this later together with @LocutusOfBorg and decide how to proceed with this issue

[AenBleidd]

This is still reproducible on @LocutusOfBorg build with wxWidgets 3.2.0

[Vulpine05]

I just tested this on two computers, both with Ubuntu 18.04 using the new 7.20.5 from @LocutusOfBorg's PPA which is built with wxWidgets 3.2.0. I switched between simple and advanced views at least half a dozen times without any problems. @RichardHaselgrove, can you confirm on your end?

[talregev]

The ppa doesn't determine the version of wxWidgets, it depends on Ubuntu version you have. It still takes the wxWidgets from official Ubuntu ppa.
That why snap was invented.

[AenBleidd]

That why snap was invented.

Before snap static linking was invented to prevent exactly this issue.

[talregev]

We talking about ppa. They work in share mode. If @LocutusOfBorg is compile it statically it against Ubuntu way.

[AenBleidd]

Snap isn't distributed via PPA as well.
So it's completely different, and cannot be compared.

[talregev]

You miss my point.
I was talking about the wxWidgets version inside ppa.
Not sure why you argue about the facts and add some non relevant information.

[AenBleidd]

Again: you could build application with static or dynamic linking and distribute it via PPA. Snap package is not distributed via PPA because it has completely different installation procedure.
So your comment about snap is not relevant.

[RichardHaselgrove]

Sorry, I didn't notice that this was also one of mine this morning - @Vulpine05, ignore the question I asked you in #5022, it's answered here.

I have two Linux machines:

Linux Mint 20.3
This has the full v7.20.5 suite installed directly from the PPA. The crashing bug on switch from Simple to Advanced view appears not to be present. Other bugs are apparent: notices dialog is blank when launched from Simple view, but notices are present when seen in Advanced view. And the exit menu from Simple view doesn't have the Linux distro customisations.

Linux Mint 21
I can't install from the PPA on this machine, because of a security policy change which rejects the signing key when presented from the PPA. However, I've copied the v7.20.5 client and boinccmd binaries from the 20.3 machine, and they work fine in the v7.18.1 framework from the Mint repository.

The PPA Manager desn't work, because of a library mis-match:

	libwx_gtk3u_webview-3.2.so.0 => not found
	libwx_gtk3u_html-3.2.so.0 => not found
	libwx_gtk3u_core-3.2.so.0 => not found
	libwx_baseu_net-3.2.so.0 => not found
	libwx_baseu-3.2.so.0 => not found

However, I've copied the v7.20.5 manager from the CI artifact for commit 03ff14d (19 November 2022), and that also works without crashing when switching views.

[RichardHaselgrove]

Correction/update on the 'blank notices' from Simple view bug: moving the mouse pointer over the notice box reveals signs of life: the pointer changes to a text insertion symbol. It's even possible to copy the text and read it externally, but you're fishing blind: white text on a white background, highlighted in white.

[AenBleidd]

@RichardHaselgrove, since this is a wxWidgets issue, I'm not sure your testing with manual libraries update is correct: CI build is done with the latest version of wxWidgets that doesn't have this issue.
Also I have no idea how to proceed with this ticket. I don't think it's reasonable to invest time trying to make some workaround for older version of wxWidgets.

[RichardHaselgrove]

I'm happy to accept that the crashing bug listed in the issue title is no longer present, and I'll close this issue.

But the 'white text on a white background' for notices in simple view was present in Manager v7.18.1 from the Mint 21 repo - I kept that as a backup in case I couldn't get any of the v7.20.5 managers to work. I'll open a new issue for that. Possibly after lunch - I remember it from somewhere, and I need to check it isn't a duplicate.

[RichardHaselgrove]

Yes, it's a duplicate - previously reported as #4902