Bug 17430

Summary:	mgaapplet wrongly advises to contact support@mageiaonline.com
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Paul Lefort <Paul.Lefort>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	Rémi Verschelde <rverschelde>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	major
Priority:	Normal	CC:	doktor5000, marja11, terraagua, thierry.vignaud
Version:	Cauldron
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:	MGA5TOO
Source RPM:	mgaonline	CVE:
Status comment:

Description Paul Lefort 2016-01-01 00:38:34 CET

Description of problem:
I think this may have started after a recent change in MSEC security level and possibly updating . . .
When I start the browser (Opera) there is an error message: "fatal error: unable to open rpmdb" which I see is being looked at in BUG16197. I ran as suggested rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db* and rpm -vv --rebuilddb to rebuild the database(?). But there are no real fixes suggested.

Also in the taskbar (where there is usually a little icon telling me that there are updates available) it now tells me "Service configuration problem. Please check logs and send mail to support@mageiaonline.com" which fails to send.
Note also that the computer now refuses to shutdown and has to be forced off with the power button.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

How reproducible:
Every time I boot the computer and start the browser

Steps to Reproduce:
1.boot computer
2.start browser
3.after a random (usually short) time get the error message
4. now always fails to shutdown

This is an email I sent to someone at Mageia several days ago because the suggested "support@..." email address does not work, but got no response so far:

Hi,
Please can you help. I have recently had a few problems (see below). One of them suggests emailing support@mageiaonline.com but this fails to send. Here is what I was trying to say:

I have been running Mageia 5 on my Asuspro laptop for a few months now without any major problems though with a number of things that do not work on Mageia but do on the WIN7 partition. I mostly boot using Mageia5 because I see that as more secure for online use; HOWEVER, recently I have noticed a few files (that I was working on only recently) have disappeared from my computer. Because of this and because I keep seeing some MSEC security messages, I decided to investigate.

MSEC suggested looking at /var/log/security.log but I had no idea how to do this and it is not easy for the average user to find how to do this. But I did get into the MCC and MSEC security . . .configure system security . . .and upgraded it from "Standard" to "Secure" - thinking that it might stop my files disappearing. What happened has been a series of annoying problems, some minor: like not being able to open the /root/anything folders; but more seriously the computer does not shut down properly (I have to force it off with the "Start" button).

When I start the browser (Opera) it comes up with the "fatal error: unable to open rpmdb" which I see is being looked at in BUG16197. I ran as suggested rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db* and rpm -vv --rebuilddb to rebuild the database(?).

Also in the taskbar (where there is usually a little icon telling me that there are updates available) it now tells me "Service configuration problem. Please check logs and send mail to support@..."

I use a USB dongle to connect to the Internet through Telstra (Australia) and the name of the device is usually listed as enp0s20u1, but now that name changes each time I start it up.

These problems all started when I changed the MSEC security level (which I have since put back to "Standard" to see if the problems disappeared - which they did not). About the same time I looked at the updates which were available. I don't update very often because if most things are working I don't provoke it (updates often causing problems in my experience). So having looked at the list of updates available I decided to leave the updating for later. Could this have caused the rpmdb problem?

Any advice would be appreciated especially as to why the computer will not shutdown - I have not had this problem since WIN95 !!
Regards,
Paul.

Reproducible:

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1 Marja Van Waes 2016-01-01 18:38:48 CET

Hi Paul,

Thanks for reporting the wrong advice to contact support@mageiaonline.com

that is a mistake in line 95 from
http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/mgaonline/tree/mgaapplet :

tt => [ N_("Service configuration problem. Please check logs and send mail to support\@mageiaonline.com") ]

and, unfortunately, present in all translations, too :-(

I'll keep this report open for that bug.

About the other issues: 

* you tell that you don't update often. Please be aware that many updates are _security_ updates. 
* also, a bug report is meant for only one issue that happens in a fully updated system. Before opening bug reports for the other problems, please ask for advice in the forums https://forums.mageia.org/en/ 

Cheers,
Marja

(Assigning to Thierry, because he owns http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/mgaonline
CC'ing Florian - forums team leader - so he'll know about this bug report when the forums thread is opened)

CC: (none) => doktor5000, marja11
Version: 5 => Cauldron
Assignee: bugsquad => thierry.vignaud
Summary: fatal error: unable to open rpmdb => mgaapplet wrongly advises to contact support@mageiaonline.com
Source RPM: rpmdb? => mgonline
Whiteboard: (none) => MGA5TOO

Comment 2 Marja Van Waes 2016-01-02 09:44:59 CET

@ Paul

Just now, when I discussed your spontaneously disappearing files on IRC, diogenese told me he had seen the same when a disk was failing:

2016:01:02:09:25 < diogenese> marja: I've seen that, but was because my drive was failing.

2016:01:02:09:27 < diogenese> marja: file system caching can have strange side effects if the occasional write fails. Files would just disappear for no reason in my case.

2016:01:02:09:30 < diogenese> marja: Had that happen at random times for almost a year. Started new and set up a raid then it was evident. System crashed every 2-5 days until I got it fixed.

2016:01:02:09:37 < diogenese> marja: Well, that's one reason for disappearing files. If the system fails to write file system bookkeeping properly, files you haven't touched can just disappear.

I wasn't really aware a failing disk could cause this (I've only seen file corruption on failing disks, but in my case the files didn't disappear)

Comment 3 Marja Van Waes 2016-01-02 10:09:13 CET

Sorry for continuing to mix issues in this report, I had overlooked something in diogenese's reply

2016:01:02:10:00 < marja> diogenese: sorry, rereading I see what you wrote about the PSU ... how was that related to the disappearing files? did it randomly cut the power on the drive (so that it wasn't really the drive that was failing, but the PSU?)
2016:01:02:10:00 < marja> randomly and very shortly
2016:01:02:10:01 < diogenese> marja: Right. The drives were fine. Something wrong with the power connectors.

@ tv

I'll file a fresh report for the  mgaapplet advice to contact support@mageiaonline.com, if you think this report has become too messy.

What should the advice be replaced with? We don't have a support e-mail address for our own software.

Marja Van Waes 2016-01-02 10:22:20 CET

Source RPM: mgonline => mgaonline

Comment 4 Marja Van Waes 2016-01-12 14:01:03 CET

In reply to a mail of Paul:

On 11/01/16 02:54, Paul Lefort wrote:
> From: Paul Lefort
> Sent: 10 January 2016 11:30
> To: Marja van Waes
> Subject: RE: [Bug 17430] mgaapplet wrongly advises to contact support@mageiaonline.com
> 
> Hi,
> It seems that the only part of this series of presumably connected problems that has been listed as a bug is the one concerning the wrong contact for support. However, it is all the other unanswered problems which need to be fixed. That is:
> 
> 1. Why I cannot shutdown this computer (infact there is now no option listed when I try to shutdown)
> 2. why do I see "fatal error occured: unable to open rpmdb" once the browser has been open for some time.
> 3. which leads to the "service config problem" advising to contact support@mageiaonline.com
> 4. Why some of my very recently used files had disappeared (this laptop is only a few months old)
> 
> The reason for asking about all these problems together is because they all arose at the same time after changing MSEC (because of the disappearing files) so presumably they are connected and therefore those who know how to fix these problems have all the information to hand.
> 
> And by the way I have never been able to update from the icon in the taskbar which tells us of new updates because it has never worked on this installation of Mageia 5. I have to go through the MCC as root to update.
> Regards,
> Paul.

Hi Paul,

Yes, I'm aware you're having more issues.

I did not see how the issues you reported could all be caused by _one_ bug in our software, and I wasn't even sure that all the issues were caused by bugs in Mageia.

Therefore I chose to use the bug report for the only issue of which I was sure it was a Mageia bug.

I could have suggested to open one or more bug reports for the other issues, but since the disappearing files could also be caused by e.g. a hardware problem (which could account for more problems), I decided to advise you to ask in the forums for help.

Cheers,
Marja

Comment 5 Marja Van Waes 2016-01-15 10:44:44 CET

In reply to another mail from Paul:

Op 13-01-16 om 23:44 schreef Paul Lefort:
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Paul Lefort
> Sent: 14 January 2016 09:41
> To: marjall@xs4all.nl
> Subject:
> 
<snip>
> Considering bug 17430: surely it is only one small change in a line of code
> to correct the contact address or is it simply that there is no contact? This
> is really important because normal people just don't have the time to dissect
> multiple issues
<snip>

We do not have an e-mail address where you can get support, what we have is listed here:
http://www.mageia.org/en/support/
It might be best to replace the e-mail address with a link to:

   ==> http://www.mageia.org/en/support/#comm <==


Unlike Mandrake and Mandriva in the past and e.g. Ubuntu today, we are a *community* distribution: made by volunteers in their free time. Ideally, all users who can spare a bit of time should contribute.
http://www.mageia.org/en/contribute/
A support@mageia.org e-mail address would only be useful if there'd be a large number of volunteers who are capable and willing to read those mails and reply to them. However, Paul, even if you'd find many volunteers to do that, then there'd still be a downside: those mails would be hidden for other users, who therefore wouldn't be able to learn from them.

About the rest of your mail: please start a thread in the forums or, if you prefer, on the discuss mailing list (you need to sign up for it, first)
https://ml.mageia.org/l/info/discuss

For replying in this bug report, (e.g. to the suggestion to replace the wrong e-mail address with a link to http://www.mageia.org/en/support/#comm ): please use your browser to go to this report and log in.

I have thousands of unread mails, so cannot guarantee I'll see your next private mail. Moreover, messages that may be of interest to many more Mageia community members should be public.

Comment 6 Marja Van Waes 2016-01-17 09:02:05 CET

(In reply to Marja van Waes from comment #5)

> It might be best to replace the e-mail address with a link to:
> 
>    ==> http://www.mageia.org/en/support/#comm <==

@ macxi,

I just noticed in bug 16203 that you saw the wrong advise to contact support@mageiaonline.com, too.

What do you think about replacing that with:

   Please check logs and contact us http://www.mageia.org/en/support/#comm

CC: (none) => terraagua

Comment 7 macxi 2016-01-18 00:53:09 CET

(In reply to Marja van Waes from comment #6)
> (In reply to Marja van Waes from comment #5)
> 
> > It might be best to replace the e-mail address with a link to:
> > 
> >    ==> http://www.mageia.org/en/support/#comm <==
> 
> @ macxi,
> 
> I just noticed in bug 16203 that you saw the wrong advise to contact
> support@mageiaonline.com, too.
> 
> What do you think about replacing that with:
> 
>    Please check logs and contact us http://www.mageia.org/en/support/#comm


I think a good idea

Comment 8 macxi 2016-01-18 00:53:47 CET

I think it's a good idea.

Comment 9 Mageia Robot 2016-05-29 00:47:10 CEST

commit ec153af32ff4f1d70a0387135ccc25894bd8a3af
Author: Rémi Verschelde <rverschelde@...>
Date:   Sun May 29 00:46:24 2016 +0200

    Fix wrong contact address for support (mga#17430)
---
 Commit Link:
   http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/mgaonline/commit/?id=ec153af32ff4f1d70a0387135ccc25894bd8a3af

Comment 10 Rémi Verschelde 2016-05-29 00:48:14 CEST

Fixed with the above commit. As I changed the sentence a bit according to the suggestion in comment 6, I let gettext fuzzy the corresponding translations.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
CC: (none) => thierry.vignaud
Resolution: (none) => FIXED
Assignee: thierry.vignaud => rverschelde

Comment 11 Marja Van Waes 2016-08-10 08:25:55 CEST

Reopening, because Kenneth Marcy reported still getting the old message.

I fail to see (but might jut need coffee) that the fixed ever got packaged, neither for cauldron nor for Mga5

Status: RESOLVED => REOPENED
Resolution: FIXED => (none)

Comment 12 Rémi Verschelde 2016-08-10 09:05:03 CEST

I'll have a look at rolling a new version.

Comment 13 Thierry Vignaud 2016-08-10 14:45:53 CEST

Pushed

Status: REOPENED => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED