Can't connect to a self-hosted zulip server after the latest update

[shynie]

After updating to v27.156 on iOS I can't connect to our zulip server, the app is stuck on connecting to server. If I use browser, everything works just fine.
I tried connecting from different networks, tried reinstalling zulip but without much luck. After reinstalling it let me log in but now all I see when I open the app is a splash screen with the loading animation.

[chrisbobbe]

Thanks for the report! Yikes, those are bad symptoms.

Do you have any accounts on other realms; for example, on chat.zulip.org? If so, do you have any trouble connecting to those?

Also, would you mind checking (or asking the person who manages the server to check) what version and commit the server's code is at, and if there's anything special that might be going on with the server? This would be a good starting point to investigate—there might be a quirk on the server that the mobile app has stopped handling well with this version.

[chrisbobbe]

@gnprice, I've just pushed to #4193 and un-marked it as a draft (finally!)—that should at least relieve the symptom of being stuck indefinitely on the loading screen, by having the initial fetch give up at 60 seconds.

[shynie]

@chrisbobbe chat.zulip.org works fine.
We use pretty old version of zulip - it's v1.8.1. And I don't think there's anything "special" going on :)
In server logs I see two calls to /api/v1/fetch_api_key and /api/v1/register respectively, followed by a bunch of calls to /api/v1/users/me/presence from ZulipMobile.

[timabbott]

@shynie I'd highly recommend upgrading as 1.8.1 version is old enough that we don't consider it worth testing mobile apps changes against. Modern Zulip is much better, and also 1.8.1 has several important security issues that have been fixed over the last few years.

You can use https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/production/upgrade-or-modify.html#upgrading-the-operating-system to do the series of upgrades requires to end up on a current release.

(We may still want to investigate a bit to see if we can find a traceback, in case the issue here affects more recent Zulip as well)