Empty (blank) page on launch. Console output on refresh: flatpak-spawn: Invalid byte sequence in conversion input

[travier]

Launching Cockpit client gives me an empty (blank) page on launch.

Pressing the refresh button generated the following output in console logs:

flatpak-spawn: Invalid byte sequence in conversion input

Fedora Kinoite 38, Wayland.

[travier]

Looks like the client assumes that some parts of Cockpits are installed on the host: https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit/blob/main/src/client/cockpit-client-ssh#L57

My bad, miss-read that.

[allisonkarlitskaya]

@travier thanks for the report. Just to confirm: "on launch" means "immediately on startup" and not "after trying to press the connect button"?

Are you a new user of Cockpit Client or is this a regression that was observed after you upgraded to the latest version?

[travier]

Yes, it was stuck on a blank page before connecting to a server, directly on launch.

I've re-tried today, clearing all Flatpak data and it works now so I'm not sure where the issue was.

[travier]

OK, I've re-tried again and now the client is stuck again on a blank page.

[travier]

This happens when I launch Cockpit from the KDE menu but not always when I launch from the command line.

[travier]

OK, clearing the data again, I can consistently reproduce that. Launching from the KDE menu give me a blank page, when launching from the command line gives me the window as expected.

[travier]

They are not launched using the same parameters (first is command line, second is desktop entry):

$ ps aux | grep cockpit
tim        39000  0.3  0.0   3492  1920 pts/1    S+   15:34   0:00 /usr/bin/bwrap --args 38 cockpit-client
tim        39010  0.1  0.0   3604  1168 pts/1    S+   15:34   0:00 /usr/bin/bwrap --args 38 cockpit-client
tim        39011  3.7  0.4 91494292 147208 pts/1 Sl+  15:34   0:00 python3 /app/bin/cockpit-client
tim        39031  0.0  0.0 160052  6784 pts/1    Sl+  15:34   0:00 /app/libexec/cockpit-ws --address=127.0.0.90 --port=9090
tim        39419  0.0  0.0 222548  2432 pts/3    S+   15:35   0:00 grep --color=auto cock
$ ps aux | grep cockpit
tim        39463  0.2  0.0   3492  1920 ?        Ss   15:35   0:00 /usr/bin/bwrap --args 38 cockpit-client --gapplication-service
tim        39473  0.2  0.0   3584  1280 ?        S    15:35   0:00 /usr/bin/bwrap --args 38 cockpit-client --gapplication-service
tim        39474  3.8  0.3 107930872 129136 ?    Sl   15:35   0:00 python3 /app/bin/cockpit-client --gapplication-service

[travier]

Looks like KDE shows the second one only in the menu:

$ cat /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Cockpit Client
Comment=Connect via ssh to servers running Cockpit
Icon=org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient
DBusActivatable=true
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=cockpit-client org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient
Categories=Network;RemoteAccess
X-Flatpak=org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient
$ cat /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/dbus-1/services/org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient.service
[D-BUS Service]
Name=org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=cockpit-client org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient --gapplication-service

[travier]

Starting the application "in a loop", I see a lot of IBus errors in the journal logs:

Jul 03 15:41:11 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-40872.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:15 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-40908.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:15 phoenix xdg-desktop-portal-kde[1886]: xdp-kde-settings: Namespace  "org.gnome.desktop.a11y.interface"  is not supported
Jul 03 15:41:15 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-40945.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:16 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@33.service.
Jul 03 15:41:16 phoenix ibus-portal[40970]: Not connected to the ibus bus
Jul 03 15:41:16 phoenix systemd[1570]: dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@33.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jul 03 15:41:16 phoenix systemd[1570]: dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@33.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 03 15:41:28 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-40996.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:28 phoenix xdg-desktop-portal-kde[1886]: xdp-kde-settings: Namespace  "org.gnome.desktop.a11y.interface"  is not supported
Jul 03 15:41:28 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-41058.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:29 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@34.service.
Jul 03 15:41:29 phoenix ibus-portal[41083]: Not connected to the ibus bus
Jul 03 15:41:29 phoenix systemd[1570]: dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@34.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jul 03 15:41:29 phoenix systemd[1570]: dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@34.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 03 15:41:36 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-41101.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:36 phoenix xdg-desktop-portal-kde[1886]: xdp-kde-settings: Namespace  "org.gnome.desktop.a11y.interface"  is not supported
Jul 03 15:41:36 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started app-flatpak-org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient-41138.scope.
Jul 03 15:41:36 phoenix systemd[1570]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.freedesktop.portal.IBus@35.service.
Jul 03 15:41:36 phoenix ibus-portal[41165]: Not connected to the ibus bus

[allisonkarlitskaya]

This appears to be a problem with the way KDE is trying to D-Bus-activate the application. If you're feeling up to it, can you please try the following?

1. Uninstall all existing versions of the flatpak from your computer
2. Get a source checkout of the main branch of https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit
3. Edit src/client/org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient.desktop and remove the DBusActivatable=true line
4. Build the flatpak locally by running containers/flatpak/install --user --install-deps-from=flathub

and then see if the problem is solved?

Thanks

[travier]

Doing the above fixes the issue:

$ cat ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient.desktop  
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Cockpit Client
Comment=Connect via ssh to servers running Cockpit
Icon=org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=devel --arch=x86_64 --command=cockpit-client org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient
Categories=Network;RemoteAccess
X-Flatpak=org.cockpit_project.CockpitClient

[travier]

Reading:

• https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/DBusActivatable
• https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kglobalaccel/-/merge_requests/11
• https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec-latest.html

I'm not sure how that works with Flatpaks.

[travier]

OK, this looks like https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1869108 or flatpak/flatpak#3342 as I did:

$ sudo systemctl reload dbus-broker.service 

and now it works. This is also likely why it worked after a reboot.

[travier]

Hum, it's not working anymore again, so it must be something else 🤔

[allisonkarlitskaya]

I think we may as well disable D-Bus activation by default. We use it from the test cases, but that should still work even if we don't have it in the desktop file.

[allisonkarlitskaya]

@travier just to be extra-sure, can you please try and build the branch that I just pushed at cockpit-project/cockpit#19063 and confirm that it fixes the issue for you?