[BUG] Repetitive log entries appear when running Orbot

[almazyan]

Describe the Bug
Repetitive log entries appear when running Orbot, indicating repeated actions like updating settings, bootstrapping, and connecting to Tor control ports.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Download and install the APK Orbot-17.3.2-RC-1-tor-0.4.8.12-fullperm-arm64-v8a-release.apk from GitHub.
2. Launch Orbot, select the 'bridge from tor' configuration.
3. Click on 'Start VPN'.
4. Check the logs to observe the following repeated messages:

updating settings in Tor service
Updating torrc custom configuration…
Orbot is Starting…
updating settings in Tor service
Updating torrc custom configuration…
Orbot is Starting…
Connected to tor control port
Added control port event handler
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 15% (handshake_done): Handshake with a relay done
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 20% (onehop_create): Establishing an encrypted directory connection
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 25% (requesting_status): Asking for networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: new bridge descriptor 'DockerObfs4Bridge' (fresh): $B9C34B5653143A0B8EFBEEFA748FD61813A03945DockerObfs4Bridge [XZaLhab8T3LyX3A2yAKCCG3j0mHnu3J++YOWKbBuhl8] at 80.218.72.147
NOTICE: new bridge descriptor 'freiraumbridge2' (fresh): $EA7254DC81B7FB0ADA2D4FF552A8D3E8B670D78Cfreiraumbridge2 [ppPaKsfJzVVxnPu0J/kntGkp/NSy7f+rJ0Uz50q3JEg] at 217.160.248.45
Connected to tor control port
Added control port event handler
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 30% (loading_status): Loading networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 30% (loading_status): Loading networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We have no usable consensus.
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We have no usable consensus.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 40% (loading_keys): Loading authority key certs
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 40% (loading_keys): Loading authority key certs
NOTICE: The current consensus has no exit nodes. Tor can only build internal paths, such as paths to onion services.
NOTICE: The current consensus has no exit nodes. Tor can only build internal paths, such as paths to onion services.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 45% (requesting_descriptors): Asking for relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 45% (requesting_descriptors): Asking for relay descriptors
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/8032, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.)
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/8032, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.)
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 50% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 50% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: The current consensus contains exit nodes. Tor can build exit and internal paths.
NOTICE: The current consensus contains exit nodes. Tor can build exit and internal paths.
WARN: Rejecting SOCKS request for anonymous connection to private address [scrubbed].
WARN: Rejecting SOCKS request for anonymous connection to private address [scrubbed].
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 55% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 55% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 62% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 62% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 68% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 68% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done

Expected Behavior
The logs should show a unique sequence of events without repetition, indicating a stable connection and configuration process.

What Custom Configuration Do You Use?
The issue was observed across various configurations including Snowflake, bridge from tor, and direct connection. The detailed logs provided are from the 'bridge from tor' setup.

Smartphone (please complete the following information):
Device: Pixel 6
OS: GrapheneOS
Orbot Version: 17.3.2-RC-1

Additional Context
Clearing the app's storage and cache data before relaunching Orbot with the 'bridge from tor' configuration eliminates the repeated logs, but then there are no bridge descriptor notifications:

updating settings in Tor service
Updating torrc custom configuration…
Orbot is Starting…
Connected to tor control port
Added control port event handler
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 30% (loading_status): Loading networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We have no usable consensus.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 40% (loading_keys): Loading authority key certs
NOTICE: The current consensus has no exit nodes. Tor can only build internal paths, such as paths to onion services.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 45% (requesting_descriptors): Asking for relay descriptors
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/8032, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.)
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 50% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: The current consensus contains exit nodes. Tor can build exit and internal paths.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 55% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 60% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 65% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 72% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
WARN: Rejecting SOCKS request for anonymous connection to private address [scrubbed].
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done

What is the problem? Why do I see the repetitive log entries?

[almazyan]

What could trigger my clock to jump?

Your system clock just jumped 114 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.

It was found in today's log:

updating settings in Tor service
Updating torrc custom configuration…
Orbot is Starting…
Connected to tor control port
Added control port event handler
WARN: Rejecting SOCKS request for anonymous connection to private address [scrubbed].
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 14% (handshake): Handshaking with a relay
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 15% (handshake_done): Handshake with a relay done
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 20% (onehop_create): Establishing an encrypted directory connection
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 25% (requesting_status): Asking for networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: new bridge descriptor 'crusty2' (fresh): $8838024498816A039FCBBAB14E6F40A0843051FAcrusty2 [tO9nYvNCAdAh9lPoEEv2pZ9BJq+YzmPAMY6pxoFrLuk] at 192.0.2.4
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 30% (loading_status): Loading networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We have no usable consensus.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 40% (loading_keys): Loading authority key certs
NOTICE: The current consensus has no exit nodes. Tor can only build internal paths, such as paths to onion services.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 45% (requesting_descriptors): Asking for relay descriptors
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/8136, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.)
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 50% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: The current consensus contains exit nodes. Tor can build exit and internal paths.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 55% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 62% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 68% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: new bridge descriptor 'flakey7' (fresh): $2B280B23E1107BB62ABFC40DDCC8824814F80A72flakey7 [1zOHpg+FxqQfi/6jDLtCpHHqBTH8gjYmCKXkus1D5Ko] at 192.0.2.3
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 114 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Delaying directory fetches: No running bridges
NOTICE: No circuits are opened. Relaxed timeout for circuit 73 (a General-purpose client 3-hop circuit in state doing handshakes with channel state open) to 60000ms. However, it appears the circuit has timed out anyway.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 592 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 287 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 313 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 600 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 248 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: No user activity in a long time: becoming dormant.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 304 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 218 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Your system clock just jumped 446 seconds forward; assuming established circuits no longer work.
NOTICE: Tor is no longer dormant.

[almazyan]

New strange logs.

updating settings in Tor service
Updating torrc custom configuration…
Orbot is Starting…
Connected to tor control port
Added control port event handler
WARN: Rejecting SOCKS request for anonymous connection to private address [scrubbed].
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 14% (handshake): Handshaking with a relay
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 15% (handshake_done): Handshake with a relay done
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 20% (onehop_create): Establishing an encrypted directory connection
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 25% (requesting_status): Asking for networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: new bridge descriptor 'flakey4' (fresh): $2B280B23E1107BB62ABFC40DDCC8824814F80A72flakey4 [1zOHpg+FxqQfi/6jDLtCpHHqBTH8gjYmCKXkus1D5Ko] at 192.0.2.3
NOTICE: Ignoring directory request, since no bridge nodes are available yet.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 30% (loading_status): Loading networkstatus consensus
NOTICE: new bridge descriptor 'crusty12' (fresh): $8838024498816A039FCBBAB14E6F40A0843051FAcrusty12 [tO9nYvNCAdAh9lPoEEv2pZ9BJq+YzmPAMY6pxoFrLuk] at 192.0.2.4
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We have no usable consensus.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 40% (loading_keys): Loading authority key certs
NOTICE: The current consensus has no exit nodes. Tor can only build internal paths, such as paths to onion services.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 45% (requesting_descriptors): Asking for relay descriptors
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/8215, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.)
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 50% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: I learned some more directory information, but not enough to build a circuit: We need more microdescriptors: we have 0/8215, and can only build 0% of likely paths. (We have 100% of guards bw, 0% of midpoint bw, and 0% of end bw (no exits in consensus, using mid) = 0% of path bw.)
NOTICE: The current consensus contains exit nodes. Tor can build exit and internal paths.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 56% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14746 and output size = 404790
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
WARN: Unable to decompress HTTP body (tried Zstandard compressed, on Directory connection (client reading) with 192.0.2.3:80).
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14986 and output size = 392194
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 63% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 69% (loading_descriptors): Loading relay descriptors
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 75% (enough_dirinfo): Loaded enough directory info to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 90% (ap_handshake_done): Handshake finished with a relay to build circuits
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 95% (circuit_create): Establishing a Tor circuit
NOTICE: Bootstrapped 100% (done): Done
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14986 and output size = 392194
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14986 and output size = 392194
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14986 and output size = 392194
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14746 and output size = 404790
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14986 and output size = 392194
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.
WARN: Detected possible compression bomb with input size = 14986 and output size = 392194
WARN: Possible compression bomb; abandoning stream.

Am I under hackers' attack?

[mk-pmb]

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor/-/issues/40739 , summary as far as I understand:

• It's probably a bug in the attack detection, making it more paranoid than it should be.
• If the suspicious data makes it into your directory cache, TOR has trouble recovering from that.
• A bugfix is in progress. A possible work-around is to delete the tainted directory cache, i.e. /var/lib/tor/cached-*, restart TOR, and hope that it will be able to download new, clean directory information.

Not sure how useful that workaround is for android, but I managed to recover my TOR on GNU/Linux using that method.

[aasselin]

Hi, these days I experience the same problem.
I am using Orbot to reach a Home Assistant, it seems that data returned by the API is over repetitive and unfortunately it will systematically be well compressed. Home Assistant becomes unusable on top of Tor / Orbot.

Could there be an option to increase the max buffer size ? Or on the reverse allow to set a maximum compression ratio in Tor so that the client and the servers can actually be OK with each other ?

Regards

[bitmold]

I'm not seeing these in 2026, so closing this old ticket.