Flooding of "get-updates" every second

[tliron]

I'm at my wits end with this issue! Basically every second something is calling PackageKit with a "get-updates".

It's on a newly installed Fedora 30 system with PackageKit 1.1.12, though I also had the same issue with Fedora 29 (which is one reason that I upgraded). I do not have it with other Fedora 29 and 30 systems (I have about 10!) so there must be something special about this box.

I know it's not GNOME Software causing this -- I already set it to not update. But I don't know how to figure out who is calling. Is there something in DBus I can use to trace it, perhaps? Here's what I have:

journalctl shows this:

May 02 17:40:28 sapir PackageKit[19649]: get-updates transaction /6892_bdddebde from uid 1000 finished with success after 32ms

Using pkmon:

Transactions:
 1      /6980_bcebdcca
/6980_bcebdcca  allow_cancel 1
/6980_bcebdcca  percentage   -1
/6980_bcebdcca  role         get-updates
/6980_bcebdcca  status       setup
/6980_bcebdcca  percentage   39
/6980_bcebdcca  percentage   89
/6980_bcebdcca  percentage   90
/6980_bcebdcca  percentage   91
/6980_bcebdcca  percentage   100
/6980_bcebdcca  status       finished
/6980_bcebdcca  exit code: success

Using dbus-monitor --system:

signal time=1556837032.129953 sender=:1.3112 -> destination=(null destination) serial=60603 path=/7096_cddedeeb; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties; member=PropertiesChanged
   string "org.freedesktop.PackageKit.Transaction"
   array [
      dict entry(
         string "Percentage"
         variant             uint32 100
      )
   ]
   array [
   ]
signal time=1556837032.129972 sender=:1.3112 -> destination=(null destination) serial=60604 path=/7096_cddedeeb; interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties; member=PropertiesChanged
   string "org.freedesktop.PackageKit.Transaction"
   array [
      dict entry(
         string "Status"
         variant             uint32 18
      )
   ]
   array [
   ]
signal time=1556837032.132521 sender=:1.3112 -> destination=(null destination) serial=60605 path=/7096_cddedeeb; interface=org.freedesktop.PackageKit.Transaction; member=Finished
   uint32 1
   uint32 32
signal time=1556837032.132533 sender=:1.3112 -> destination=(null destination) serial=60606 path=/org/freedesktop/PackageKit; interface=org.freedesktop.PackageKit; member=TransactionListChanged
   array [
   ]

[hughsie]

if you do "killall gnome-software" do the events stop? Can you find the name of ":1.3112" in d-feet?

[tliron]

killall gnome-software doesn't work because gnome-software is not running. :)

":1.3112" in this case is "org.freedesktop.PackageKit". It is sending the results (asynchronously) as property changes to transactions.

[hughsie]

uid 1000

I guess this means it's something in your user account, rather than something running as root. Maybe check what's running at startup compared to the other computers?

[tliron]

Good catch with the uid, this really helped me discover the issue. :)

So, it ended up being Byobu. Specifically, its default configuration (at least on Fedora) uses this line in updates_available for its status notification, which indeed keeps getting updated every second. When I exited Byobu the log flooding stopped.

But, now I have a question: Is Byobu doing the right thing here with PackageKit? Is it reasonable to do pkcon get-updates every second? If not, do you have a better suggestion?

[hughsie]

Is Byobu doing the right thing here with PackageKit

No, it's a really dumb way to do it :) The smart way is do GetUpdates on coldplug and then watch for the UpdatesChanged signal.

[tliron]

Thank you! I will open a bug on Byobu and direct them here.