Patchwork stuck [sbot locking]

[pferreir]

I'm not sure whether this is a Patchwork or scuttlebot issue, but decided to file it here. Basically, every now and then Patchwork will get stuck (e.g. when trying to open a conversation thread) and only after a couple of minutes it will load the content. And the "Downloading new messages" indicator at the top somehow doesn't go away. If i restart the client everything is fine, though.

There is at least one other person experiencing this, so I guess it's not misconfiguration on my side. I tried wiping my SSB DB and starting from scratch (in case something has been corrupted) and reinstalling patchwork, same problem.

[mmckegg]

Yes this is a known issue with sbot (only when using legacy replication, not ebt). It is the "dreaded locking" referred to in #589

See mega thread on ssb where I try to debug it: %GbJVNVx4jcO6kmrdrRsZ3RUyXeoPRKKf8vsM6s5v0EQ=.sha256

This is triggered when a remote peer closes the connection without warning, and then your side tries to cleanup the closed connection. It can also be triggered by turning off your wifi.

This bug has existed for at least a year. And affects ALL CLIENTS. But it has only become noticeable now that there are so many FOAFs (friend-of-friends). Also, patchwork used to buffer a long way ahead in the feed (1000) which disguised this, now it only reads 50 messages ahead.

I thought I'd fixed it in the last release, so it momentarily went away, but turns out I just added a massive memory leak instead.

I've spent 12 hours+ trying to fix this damn bug. It is impossible to get to the bottom of and I am completely sick of it. Only @dominictarr can fix this (maybe).

The easy answer is we just switch to use ebt everywhere.

[mmckegg]

Strange, this bug is no longer reproducible when I disconnect from wifi.

Very mysterious! Maybe a recent OS update fixed it?

What OS and version are you running @pferreir?

[pferreir]

I'm running Fedora 25.

[Marak]

I think I've seen something like this happen occasionally on MacOS.

I've seen it happen when I close the machine and re-open it. Sometimes Patchwork will just spin forever and not update messages. Restarting the app seems to fix the problem.

I'll keep an eye out and see if I can reproduce.

[mixmix]

capturing history from matt

• has spent 10 hours on this to date
• sbot bug :
  • can get sbot to lock when run by itself
  • ... somewhere deep, maybe muxrpc?
• has been present for ages, particularly obvious in 3.6.6
• went away in 3.6.4 ..? did something which kinda fixed this bug

symptoms

these are probably related

• feed stops loading (scrolling stops for a minute)
• you click on message and nothing happens immediately, maybe after a minute +
• progress bars freeze (sidebar with pubs, replication / indexing progress)
• you try to use an invite and nothing happens (problem happening on pub)
• you try to run sbot whoami in command line... it can't connect.
  • you can run this in a loop to see when it happens

reproducing the bug

• remote peer suddenly disconnecting (maybe?)
• turning off wifi (used to work, doesn't any more)
• worse with more people (recently)

[dcposch]

i may have run into this while trying to use patchwork earlier today.

version: patchwork 3.6.6

multiple times, it just got stuck in an infinite loading state:

steps: open the app (rare bug, usually works)

steps: open the app, click on Profile (rare bug, usually works)

each time, the problem resolved after i quit and re-opened Patchwork

i opened DevTools to try to find a stacktrace, but there was no output in the console and nothing in the network tab. see #603

cc @dominictarr

[mixmix]

Thanks for the clear documentation. I think we need to mark 3.6.6 unstable. Please try 3.6.4

…

On Mon, 14 Aug 2017, 16:36 DC ***@***.***> wrote: i may have run into this while trying to use patchwork earlier today. *version: patchwork 3.6.6* multiple times, it just got stuck in an infinite loading state: *steps: open the app (rare bug, usually works)* [image: screen shot 2017-08-13 at 2 52 57 pm] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/169280/29258487-f36cba3a-806e-11e7-9e3a-fa3fc03caeba.png> *steps: open the app, click on Profile (rare bug, usually works)* [image: screen shot 2017-08-13 at 2 52 23 pm] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/169280/29258495-02ba4a52-806f-11e7-9bd9-9e45475f5425.png> each time, the problem resolved after i quit and re-opened Patchwork i opened DevTools to try to find a stacktrace, but there was no output in the console and nothing in the network tab. see #603 <#603> cc @dominictarr <https://github.com/dominictarr> — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#597 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACitnsKhN6NObgdDHFC1rI1VXLvGKrhYks5sX87kgaJpZM4Os3rr> .

[dominictarr]

@dcposch thanks for the detailed report. I was able to detect and fix a problem like this before, and added the progress bar stuff (which where used to monitor it's occurance) how often would you say it's happening?