Pidgin plugin under TAILS

[revtowinark]

I tried the Pidgin plugin (libpurpletorchat.so in ~/.purple/plugins/ folder) under TAILS (last version 0.12) but Pidgin crashes on launch.

Is there something special to do in order to make it working under TAILS ?

[prof7bit]

On , revtowinark
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

Is there something special to do in order to make it working under TAILS ?

I haven't tried TAILS myself yet. The plugin currently is still in a very
unstable state, its tested only on ubuntu currently (but this will change
once it matures). Also it might very well be that one version works and the
next update will crash and the version after that will work again. The
plugin currently writes a very verbose log file to ~/purpletorchat.log, the
last few lines from this log might give a hint what is causing the crash or
during which operation the crash happens.

[revtowinark]

OK, thanks for your quick answer !
But I'm unable to find the log file purpletorchat.log
It seems that the crash occurs when pidgin tries to load the plugin.
I tried another way: I started pidgin without the plugin, and then while it was running, I put the plugin in the ~/.purple/plugins/ folder. Pidgin crashed when I clicked on "Plugins" in the tool menu.

[prof7bit]

2012/6/15 revtowinark <reply+i-5085823-60d3245a21474e79296c8941e52e0b4e5ac2311c-

But I'm unable to find the log file purpletorchat.log
It seems that the crash occurs when pidgin tries to load the plugin.

When you start it from the console, are there any messages visible
before the crash happens?

[revtowinark]

No crash when I start it from the console, but no trace of the torchat plugin in the plugin list !

At start and each time I open the plugin list, I always get the same thing in the console (of course except date and time) :

Jun 15 23:03:01.779 [W] plugin has been compiled with -dDebugToConsole. Not recommended.
Jun 15 23:03:01.780 [W] plugin has been compiled with -dUseHeapTrc. Not recommended.
Heap dump by heaptrc unit
116 memory blocks allocated : 7966/8344
116 memory blocks freed : 7966/8344
0 unfreed memory blocks : 0
True heap size : 360448
True free heap : 360448


[prof7bit]

On , revtowinark
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

No crash when I start it from the console, but no trace of the torchat
plugin in the plugin list !

Ok, I think I have an idea whats going on. It has no stdout to write to, I
did not know that this can ever be a problem on linux, I always thought
this is only a problem on windows.

At start and each time I open the plugin list, I always get the same
thing in the console (of course except date and time) :

Jun 15 23:03:01.779 [W] plugin has been compiled with -dDebugToConsole.
Not recommended.
Jun 15 23:03:01.780 [W] plugin has been compiled with -dUseHeapTrc. Not
recommended.>
Heap dump by heaptrc unit
116 memory blocks allocated : 7966/8344
116 memory blocks freed : 7966/8344
0 unfreed memory blocks : 0
True heap size : 360448
True free heap : 360448

OK, this looks good. Until I have fixed the console logging when there is
no stdout only start it from the console for now. I will find a solution
for this, its easy.

• when pidgin is running go to the accounts menu -> manage accounts -> add
  new account.
• select "TorChat" from the dropdown list
• in the user name field enter your name or nickname or something else that
  will identify this "account" (this identity) (you can create multiple
  accounts). This is NOT the TorChat ID, this will be generated later, this
  is just a human readable name for this identity to tell them apart.
• click ok

now you should see a lot of things happening in the console window and it
should not crash and after some time the 'myself' contact should appear
online. It will create a group in the buddylist for this account. You can
then add other buddies by adding them to this account with their TorChat ID.

Btw: yesterday i have uploaded a new version. It does not fix this
crash-without-console bug but fixes some other things. You can now use IM,
Buddy icons, profile name, profile text, the only thing that is still
missing is file transfer, this will come soon.

[revtowinark]

With version alpha7, when I open the plugin list, still no trace of the Torchat plugin in that list. And now, nothing happen in the console.

* select "TorChat" from the dropdown list

"TorChat" isn't showing in the dropdown list.

[prof7bit]

On , revtowinark
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

With version alpha7, when I open the plugin list, still no trace of the
Torchat plugin in that list. And now, nothing happen in the console.

it should be in "Help" -> "Plugin Information"
and NOT in "Tools" -> "Plugins".

in Help -> Plugin Information it should be listed with
loadable: yes
loaded: yes

The dropdown is in "Accounts" -> "Manage accounts" -> "Add", there you
shoud see a lot of IM protocols and TorChat should be among them.

Make sure you copied the .so file directly into the plugins folder and NOT
the folder containing it (if you unzip the tar.bz2 there is a folder and
inside this folder is the actual plugin. We don't need all these folders,
instead just take the libpurpletorchat.so file and put it directly into
~/.purple/plugins/ )

[revtowinark]

it should be in "Help" -> "Plugin Information"
and NOT in "Tools" -> "Plugins".

Sorry, I have nothing about plugins in "Help".

I started pidgin with the command pidgin -d > ~/debug.log 2>&1 and I get that about the Torchat plugin in the debug file:
(19:32:24) plugins: probing /home/amnesia/.purple/plugins/libpurpletorchat.so
(19:32:24) plugins: /home/amnesia/.purple/plugins/libpurpletorchat.so is not loadable: undefined symbol: purple_notify_user_info_add_pair_plaintext

[prof7bit]

2012/6/16 revtowinark <reply+i-5085823-60d3245a21474e79296c8941e52e0b4e5ac2311c-

Sorry, I have nothing about plugins in "Help".

I started pidgin with the command pidgin -d > ~/debug.log 2>&1 and I get that about the Torchat plugin in the debug file:
(19:32:24) plugins: probing /home/amnesia/.purple/plugins/libpurpletorchat.so
(19:32:24) plugins: /home/amnesia/.purple/plugins/libpurpletorchat.so is not loadable: undefined symbol: purple_notify_user_info_add_pair_plaintext

Which version of Pidgin is this?

[revtowinark]

Which version of Pidgin is this?

Pidgin version 2.7.3, the last version available for Debian (squeeze)

[prof7bit]

Could you please try the latest version (2.0-alpha-9)? I removed the offending function from my function imports entirely and am now using purple_notify_user_info_add_pair() instead of purple_notify_user_info_add_pair_plaintext(), I think the latter one has been added in newer purple versions (I'm building and linking it against 2.10.0 (which is the one from Ubuntu 11.10) but it should run with older versions too since I am trying to import only the bare minimum of absolutely necessary API functions.

[revtowinark]

Here are the lines about the Torchat plugin (version 2.0-alpha-9) that I get when starting pidgin with the command pidgin -d > ~/debug.log 2>&1 :

(17:06:16) plugins: probing /home/amnesia/.purple/plugins/libpurpletorchat.so
(17:06:16) plugin has been compiled with -dDebugToConsole. Not recommended.
Jun 17 17:06:16.837 [W] plugin has been compiled with -dDebugToConsole. Not recommended.
(17:06:16) plugins: /home/amnesia/.purple/plugins/libpurpletorchat.so is not loadable: ABI version mismatch 2.10.x (need 2.7.x)

[prof7bit]

please try alpha-10

[revtowinark]

Now with version alpha-10 the plugin is loaded !!!
I followed the instructions and created a new account, but after more than half an hour, I'm still offline.

In the debug file, always the same messages:
Jun 17 18:47:28.078 [M] TBuddy.InitiateConnect() (****************) connecting to Tor: 127.0.0.1:11109
Jun 17 18:47:29.079 [M] ~~~~> **************** connected to Tor, sending Socks4a request (msg from thread B4B4FB70)
Jun 17 18:47:29.080 [M] ~~/~> **************** Socks4a connection failed: 91 (msg from thread B4B4FB70)
Jun 17 18:47:29.082 [M] **************** next connect attempt in 179.90566663146018 seconds (msg from thread B4B4FB70)

[prof7bit]

On , revtowinark
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

In the debug file, always the same messages:

Jun 17 18:47:28.078 [M] TBuddy.InitiateConnect() (****************) connecting to Tor: 127.0.0.1:11109
Jun 17 18:47:29.079 [M] ~~~~> **************** connected to Tor, sending Socks4a request (msg from thread B4B4FB70)
Jun 17 18:47:29.080 [M] ~~/~> **************** Socks4a connection failed: 91 (msg from thread B4B4FB70)

are there any messages in the log indicating that it could not start
/usr/sbin/tor ?

Edit: I just see it actually must have started. But some of these old tor versions from Debian stale are buggy. Exit pidgin and start it again, on the second start after 15 minutes it should work. More that 15 minutes is always too much. (The TTL for HS descriptors is exactly 15 minutes, this number is hardcoded in Tor I cannot do anything about it.)

[revtowinark]

After many tries, "Myself" is still offline.

I checked the running processes: 2 instances of tor are running in the same time. One instance has been started by TAILS at system startup, and another by pidgin. Is that a good thing ?

Edit: I tried version alpha-9 under Windows, and it is working very well, "Myself" goes online after 80~90 seconds. (I was unable do download purpletorchat-2.0-alpha-10-win32.zip, I get the message "File was not found.")

[prof7bit]

On , revtowinark
reply@reply.github.com
wrote:

I checked the running processes: 2 instances of tor are running in the
same time. One instance has been started by TAILS at system startup, and
another by pidgin. Is that a good thing ?

Yes. TorChat needs to configure its own hidden service on the fly at
runtime and currently the only way to do this is to start and stop its very
own tor process with its own torrc file (you can view this tor config file
in ~/.torchat2_yourname/Tor/torrc.generated.txt)

Probably TAILS has done some creative network configuration that will not
allow any application except its own tor to access the internet directly.
But TorChat's tor also must be allowed to access the internet. This is a
TAILS specific thing, I don't know to solve this (it can probably be done
but I don't know how, TAILS developers might be able to help)

The other option would be (and I will implement this eventually) to make it
able to also work with a preconfigured hidden service running on an already
running tor. But this still needs some time.

[mark199]

i got all the way up to having torchat in the options to make a new account, filled in a name, but than in the terminal it it trying to connect over and over but gives the message:

---

re4949fjkll4jdi4 tor connection error: error on connect: connection refused (msg from thread BD4C0M070)

the msg from thread code when i try to restart pidgin is a bit different every time it seems.

what should i do?! im really now to TAILS (and linux) so i was happy to get this far.. but now im really stuck. help is much appreciated!!

[mark199]

anyone?? i still havent figured it out.. :(

[DrDub]

Hi! I have no experience with the new TAILS (just the old one). This issue is about a patch for TorChat2, a standalone program written in Lazarus, not the plugin for pidgin. I think you are commenting on a bug for the wrong program/component, and definitely commenting on the wrong issue. I have some ideas of what could be going on, but I won't comment it here because it is muddling this pull request. Please start your own issue and post the number here, I'll reply there. Thanks.

[mark199]

Hi Drdub,

I am not sure, but i dont think im posting in the wrong place. I didnt install torchat seperate (i tried before but it wont connect and then i found out i dont have to install seperate for this plugin with pidgin). I installed littlepurpletorchat.so just like the guy in this post and then when i start pidgin i get the error message i posted. So if i am wrong anyways which is very well possible tell me again and i will make a new topic. Thanks