#46 No available working CID clients and latest server dep issue

[mmartz]

Greetings,

Ran into an issue with the current native client and also have had an issue with kpopup client for at least a year since QT4 was removed from Focal.

The server side of things still works with 1.11.0 but no clients do in tried versions. Did notice Kubuntu 20.04.3 was upgraded at some point recently from 20.04.2 as that is what was installed on dev station via apt.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Here's some console stuff you might need:

$ uname -a
Linux machine 5.11.0-37-generic #41~20.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 24 09:06:38 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

$ #ncid client v1.11.0

$ ncid
X Error of failed request:  BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length error)
  Major opcode of failed request:  139 (RENDER)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  20 (RenderAddGlyphs)
  Serial number of failed request:  1572
  Current serial number in output stream:  1585

$ #ncid client v1.12.0

$ sudo dpkg -i ncid_1.12-1_amd64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package ncid.
(Reading database ... 248303 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack ncid_1.12-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking ncid (1.12-1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ncid:
 ncid depends on libc6 (>= 2.33); however:
  Version of libc6:amd64 on system is 2.31-0ubuntu9.3.

dpkg: error processing package ncid (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 ncid

$ #No easy way to upgrade libc6 without killing other applications/system.. currently on an LTS that is supported until April 2023

$ sudo dpkg -i ncid-kpopup_1.12-1_all.deb
[sudo] password for user: 
Selecting previously unselected package ncid-kpopup.
(Reading database ... 318440 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack ncid-kpopup_1.12-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking ncid-kpopup (1.12-1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ncid-kpopup:
 ncid-kpopup depends on kdelibs-bin; however:
  Package kdelibs-bin is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package ncid-kpopup (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 ncid-kpopup

$ apt-cache search kdelib-bin
$ 

$ apt-cache search kdelib
libkf5kdelibs4support-data - Porting aid from KDELibs4.
libkf5kdelibs4support-dev - development files for kde4support
libkf5kdelibs4support5 - Porting aid from KDELibs4.
libkf5kdelibs4support5-bin - Porting aid from KDELibs4.

$ apt-cache policy libkf5kdelibs4support5
libkf5kdelibs4support5:
  Installed: 5.68.0-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 5.68.0-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 5.68.0-0ubuntu1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[mmartz]

Corrections in console:

$ #ncid client v1.11.0

... bash comment should be $ #ncid client v1.11.0 and 1.12.0 and ...

$ #ncid client v1.12.0

... bash comment should be $ #ncidd server v1.12.0.

Apologies for the extra noise and no permission to edit the ticket for the corrections btw. Ref: https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Tickets/#creating-and-editing-tickets

Thanks.

[John L. Chmielewski]

The error in ncid is due to an color emoji font. The ncid clients tries to avoid them, but, apparently, not yours. See the bug report I opened and the comments. I included a short script in the bug report to demonstrate the problem:
Noto Color Emoji and Noto Emoji fixed fonts cause a X error in a tcl/tk script
You can fix the problem by uninstalling the font that causes the error.

Do not use dpkg to install ncid. It will not install dependencies. Refer to
DEB Package Install for Debian, Raspbian and Ubuntu
in the on-line user manual.

The recomenede way to install ncid is:

 sudo apt install ./ncid-client_1.12-1_all.deb

This should upgrade the library without effecting applications using previous versions.
If it does, it should abort.

Use apt to install ncid-kpopup_1.12-1_all.deb. If it cannot find a dependency in a repository, it will fail.

[mmartz]

Thanks for the tip with apt. Usually I install in KDE with a double click in Dolphin, loading Package Installer, and it complains/finishes with all dependencies but I used dpkg just for this issue to see if I could trace something that might be missing from that methodology... and easier than screenshots. :)

Currently I run the server at server.localdomain registered in hosts for about the last year and today when I went to go mark a call as bad in my client this error appeared.

I did notice that when I use the default ncid.conf it pulls up the interface okay because it's using # set Hosts "localhost:3333"... but when I change it back to my LAN server that's when the bug appears.

I personally haven't installed any fonts but it's quite possible that apt via updates did (or perhaps snap when Chromium is updated).

Running:

$ apt-cache policy fonts-noto
fonts-noto:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 20200323-1build1~ubuntu20.04.1
  Version table:
     20200323-1build1~ubuntu20.04.1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main i386 Packages
     20200323-1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe i386 Packages

A little more specific but found one:

$ apt-cache search fonts-noto
fonts-noto-cjk - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (CJK regular and bold)
fonts-noto-cjk-extra - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (CJK all weight)
fonts-noto-color-emoji - color emoji font from Google
fonts-noto-core - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (core)
fonts-noto-mono - "No Tofu" monospaced font family with large Unicode coverage
fonts-noto - metapackage to pull in all Noto fonts
fonts-noto-extra - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (extra)
fonts-noto-hinted - obsolete metapackage to pull in a subset of Noto fonts
fonts-noto-ui-core - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (UI core)
fonts-noto-ui-extra - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (UI extra)
fonts-noto-unhinted - "No Tofu" font families with large Unicode coverage (unhinted)

$ apt-cache policy fonts-noto-color-emoji
fonts-noto-color-emoji:
  Installed: 0~20200916-1~ubuntu20.04.1
  Candidate: 0~20200916-1~ubuntu20.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 0~20200916-1~ubuntu20.04.1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0~20200408-1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main i386 Packages

$ sudo apt purge fonts-noto-color-emoji
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  fonts-noto-color-emoji*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 10.9 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 319266 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing fonts-noto-color-emoji (0~20200916-1~ubuntu20.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.13.1-2ubuntu3) ...

Seems to be good to go... although I'm wondering now what installed this and why it just showed up out of the blue. I think the last time I looked at the client was a week or two ago in 1.11.0 but saw the update so moved/moving to that one for at least the client.

The server still has the issue of missing an appropriate libc6 and that is reported via the UI double-click with Package Installer:

$ sudo apt install ./ncid_1.12-1_amd64.deb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'ncid' instead of './ncid_1.12-1_amd64.deb'
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ncid : Depends: libc6 (>= 2.33) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.3 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

... hopefully running the 1.12.0 client and the 1.11.0 server isn't an issue. If not I can go back to 1.11.0 client.

Thank you so much for at least getting my native UI for this awesome project back. :)

[mmartz]

Oh one other miscellaneous note...

"The ncid clients tries to avoid them, but, apparently, not yours."

Did add NCID Android to my Android, about a month or so ago, with a SMS message logged 4 days ago as having a thumbs up emoji received from an iOS phone, and perhaps that's where it is enabling the font failure on the Linux side?

[Ed Attfield]

I had noticed much the same thing. Some emojis work fine and some make the ncid client fail. Removing the emoji line from cidcall.log fixes it for a while.

[John L. Chmielewski]

A color emojis causes an error in TK, which in turn, causes ncid to fail.

Xft emoji support is working to fix the problem:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libxft/-/merge_requests/1

(edited to remove duplicate posting info inserted by SourceForge forum software)

[John L. Chmielewski]

The dpkg command does not install dependent packages. Use apt:

sudo apt ncid-kpopup_1.12-1_all.deb