Windows 10 desktop not syncing with Android conversations

[RHeggem]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

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Bug description

I use Signal on my Pixel 2 XL daily, sometimes scores of times in a single day. When I open Signal Desktop on my PC, I expect it to be current with my Android device, but it is GROSSLY out of date missing hundreds and hundreds of messages.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Signal Desktop
2. Observe the conversations on the left side of my screen

Actual result:

The Windows version only captures a small fraction of the conversations I have on my mobile device. Even many of the contacts are not synced. I just did an "Import now" (from Settings) and it didn't change anything.
Expected result:

My desktop and mobile devices should be in sync.

Screenshots

Note the very active Android screen compared to the very sparse Desktop version

Platform info

Signal version:

v1.8.0
Operating System:

Windows 10 64-bit
Linked device version:

Android Pixel 2 XL
Submit debug log: Signal 4.18.3

Link to debug log

Windows log:
https://debuglogs.org/aca3020ef602f68072743d5013326b4a62e030ee1ebaa7dc843b1b3209faaa12
Android log:
https://debuglogs.org/f4b1466e4c717bc334c282d6c5b9c1a44feb802032a7be7682c1a6bcf9ed9251

[ialxn]

Same here on a Linux Desktop Client (1.8.0) compared to my android phone. Almost one full month is missing. Actually, I had not used the desktop client for some time, so it took some time fetching all (I assumed) the conversations in batches of 10 messages upon start-up.

Log of Linux client:
https://debuglogs.org/b73854cce275e0971adab642c2ed6db83eac07a5e876a3329b2539d6d9405528

[spoondestroyer]

Was this bug ever solved? I recently started using this app and the windows version is essentially unusable because nothing is showing up.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@spoondestroyer No, no solution for this one. If you're seeing something like this, please enter a new bug - we need details. Debug logs, specific things you saw and did, and then the message 'sent id', which you can find in Signal Android or iOS with a long-press on the 'sent' header in the message details screen.

[darmbrust]

Same here... when I first installed it, it synced recent stuff. But if I leave it closed on a windows laptop I seldom use - for a couple of weeks - then come back, and start it, it doesn't sync any messages from the time when it was off.

Also, in the most recent updates, starting the desktop client often ends up with unreadable messages on my phone, or vice versa - resetting the encryption session seems to help that, but it never syncs the missing messages.

I'm also using the desktop client on linux, but I usually have it running there, and it seems to sync ok with my Android phone. I can collect whatever logs you want, but not sure what would be helpful in tracking down that it just isn't syncing.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@darmbrust We need a debug log, message 'sent id' for any missing or especially problematic message (see my last message for details on grabbing it), and as much detail as you can provide about your usage of the app and what you see (screenshots maybe?).

[darmbrust]

One of the things the happened the other day, after I had started (and updated the software to current) Signal on my windows desktop - which is the one that I use infrequently - during the sync process, my Linux desktop signal installation started to show errors of "Error handling incoming message" from myself.

An example message:

Error | Bad MAC
-- | --
Sent | Friday, January 4, 2019 11:18 PM (1546665510872)
Received | Friday, January 4, 2019 11:18 PM (1546665511858)
From

If I go to File -> Preferences and click the button to Import Contacts, it would happen again. This kept happening until I did a session reset where it shows myself.
Even after that, I continued to get errors:

Error handling incoming message
FRI 11:16 PM
More Info...
Delete Message
Error handling incoming message
FRI 11:16 PM
More Info...
Delete Message
Error handling incoming message
FRI 11:16 PM
More Info...
Delete Message
Secure session reset
Secure session reset
Error handling incoming message
FRI 11:18 PM

All of my conversations on my windows client are missing about 2 weeks worth of messages at this point - they all jump from Dec 26th to Jan 5th. I believe Jan 5th was when I started it for the first time in a while. Not sure how long it had been since it ran on windows, prior to that.

None of my debug logs go back far enough to cover that time window. I have lots of these errors in my linux desktop log, however:

ERROR 2019-01-04T07:10:58.679Z getProfile error: +[REDACTED]852 HTTPError: promiseAjax: error response; code: 403
ERROR 2019-01-04T19:06:35.084Z queueEnvelope error handling envelope +[REDACTED]227.2 1546628797427 (68c8db70-7c99-498a-be24-0f277c393aa6) : Error: Unsupported content message
ERROR 2019-01-04T19:06:41.625Z queueEnvelope error handling envelope +[REDACTED]227.2 1546628804029 (fccc3477-f94d-4744-a958-6687aa88a989) : Error: Unsupported content message
ERROR 2019-01-04T19:06:44.604Z queueEnvelope error handling envelope +[REDACTED]227.2 1546628807030 (e7b4d0ba-4528-40d7-bb97-9b84e562f59f) : Error: Unsupported content message
ERROR 2019-01-04T19:09:41.924Z queueEnvelope error handling envelope +[REDACTED]227.2 1546628984342 (8345ffa3-a2b7-4342-b967-8ff935a9fa67) : Error: Unsupported content message
ERROR 2019-01-04T21:16:31.816Z queueEnvelope error handling envelope +[REDACTED]227.2 1546636594020 (a7c95d4f-0890-470e-bb48-1aec24c4be46) : Error: Unsupported content message
ERROR 2019-01-05T05:12:52.117Z background onError: Error: No record for device +[REDACTED]852.3
ERROR 2019-01-05T05:12:52.118Z Message.saveErrors: null Error: No record for device +[REDACTED]852.3
ERROR 2019-01-05T05:12:52.119Z Top-level unhandled promise rejection: Error: No record for device +[REDACTED]852.3
ERROR 2019-01-05T20:27:39.633Z Failed to fetch prekey: 12

[darmbrust]

I see some errors like this on the windows desktop install

ERROR 2019-01-07T23:27:59.274Z background onError: MessageCounterError: Message key not found. The counter was repeated or the key was not filled.
    at file:///C:/Users/.../signal-desktop/resources/app.asar/js/libtextsecure.js:36407:25
ERROR 2019-01-07T23:27:59.274Z queueEnvelope error handling envelope +[REDACTED]852.2 1546728835890 (a01330fc-2a44-4a12-a674-3c895cc8707c) : MessageCounterError: Message key not found. The counter was repeated or the key was not filled.
    at file:///C:/Users/.../signal-desktop/resources/app.asar/js/libtextsecure.js:36407:25
INFO  2019-01-07T23:27:59.274Z message from +[REDACTED]852.2 1546728883675 (b86b3e7a-a0cb-4958-86b5-088f4c597c64)
ERROR 2019-01-07T23:27:59.274Z Top-level unhandled promise rejection: MessageCounterError: Message key not found. The counter was repeated or the key was not filled.

[KerbalSpike]

Synchronization between the signal desktop app (windows 10) and android (oneplus 3, Android 9) is still not working in any useful way :(

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@KerbalSpike do you use Android for SMS? If so, Desktop will only sync messages with your contacts with Signal accounts.

I'm going to close this. We need people who encounter anything like this to open new bugs.