[BUG] Closed group chats not being displayed on users device

[featherridge]

Code of conduct

• I have read and agree to adhere to the Code of Conduct

Self-training on how to write a bug report

• I have learned how to write a bug report

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Current Behavior

A user is added to a closed group chat.
The user cannot see the closed group chat on their device.

Expected Behavior

A user is added to a closed group chat.
The user can see the closed group chat on their device.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Create new closed group
2. Add X amount of users
3. Some users will not see the closed group chat

iOS Version

16.5.1

Session Version

2.3.1

Anything else?

No response

[iljah]

Can confirm on latest iphone 13 mini, group consists of accounts using desktop, android and ios clients and only ios client acts as if not part of group

[mpretty-cyro]

@featherridge and @iljah do either of you happen to have logs from iOS devices around the time the users were invited to join the groups?

Otherwise, to help debugging the issue:

• Are iOS devices failing to be added every time or just every now and then?
• Does this only happen when adding users to an existing group, during initial group creation, or both?
• Does it only happen when inviting multiple people? How many?
• Is the iOS device that is failing linked to any other devices? If so, which ones?

[featherridge]

@mpretty-cyro hi,

Please see answers below highlighted in bold.

• Are iOS devices failing to be added every time or just every now and then?
  Creating chat from iOS device, android and iOS users will fail every time if the group is big enough. E.G, 100 users, 30 odd will not see the chat on THEIR device. (It will show they are apart of the group on MY device)
• Does this only happen when adding users to an existing group, during initial group creation, or both?
  Both
• Does it only happen when inviting multiple people? How many?
  No. Happens even when adding 1. Not every time, but often. Up to 100. (Limit for closed groups)
• Is the iOS device that is failing linked to any other devices? If so, which ones?
  Yes and no, it doesn’t matter it seems.

troubleshooting it involves removing and readding the user until they see the messages, however once key rotation occurs, some users stop receiving messages.

[mpretty-cyro]

@featherridge thanks for your quick response - unfortunately this sounds like one of the issues we are aware of with the current closed group protocol; we are actually entirely overhauling closed groups at the moment (#730) and this issue (as well as a number of other problems) should be fixed with the updated protocol

[featherridge]

@mpretty-cyro
No worries mate, thank you.

Is there any ETA for the closed group overhaul update to be live? 3 months, 6 months?

[mpretty-cyro]

Due to the christmas period coming up I expect it won't be until early next year at this stage

[featherridge]

Due to the christmas period coming up I expect it won't be until early next year at this stage

thanks @mpretty-cyro , any update on this?

this is likely the largest issue when it comes to quality of user experience. (that use closed groups)

[mpretty-cyro]

thanks @mpretty-cyro , any update on this?

this is likely the largest issue when it comes to quality of user experience. (that use closed groups)

It'll be a little while I'm afraid, it's dependant on #731 which is currently going through testing and will also require a service node update to go live. We also want to make sure we do some decent internal testing before releasing it since it's a large rework - I'd expect it to be released late February at the earliest

[featherridge]

thanks @mpretty-cyro , any update on this?
this is likely the largest issue when it comes to quality of user experience. (that use closed groups)

It'll be a little while I'm afraid, it's dependant on #731 which is currently going through testing and will also require a service node update to go live. We also want to make sure we do some decent internal testing before releasing it since it's a large rework - I'd expect it to be released late February at the earliest

Understood, thank you for the info.

[twinboi90]

Having a similar issue. Do we have any updates?

[mpretty-cyro]

Having a similar issue. Do we have any updates?

@twinboi90 Sorry I had to shift across to the libQuic integration (#960) where we replace the current HTTPS network transport layer with a QUIC one because Apple now require releases to be built with the iOS 17 SDK and one of the changes in the iOS 17 SDK was that Apple require HTTPS network connections to IP addresses (which is how we connect to the service node network) to be signed using a certificate that is based on one of their pre-approved root certificates (the service nodes use self-signed certificates so don't meet this requirements)

Essentially without #960 any future update to the iOS app wouldn't be able to connect to the service node network 😞

On a positive note, the #960 PR is currently going through internal testing so will hopefully be going out in the next week or two, and then I'll be back on #894 which is mostly completed (there are a handful of tweaks which need to be made due to potential bugs we found in the technical design once the Android & Desktop versions progressed far enough in their development to allow us to start doing some cross-platform testing)

I'll also need to jump on the Android version of the feature to help out once I've made these changes to iOS so realistically it'll be closer to the end of the month before we can properly kick off internal testing for #894 🥲

More info on network issue:
• Announcement about requiring the iOS 17 SDK - https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=fxu2qp7b
• iOS 17 Change to IP address connections - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release-notes/ios-ipados-17-release-notes#Networking
• Signing certificate requirements - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/preventing_insecure_network_connections#3138464
• List of Apple-approved root certificates - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105116