Help needed with an account

[another_commander]

We know the old domain was used to distribute malware.

I do have to ask: where do we know that from? Is there any kind of proof? I very highly doubt it. IMO, that statement is urban legend.

[MrFlibble]

Were the prospective commander to persist, and manage to launch it from a terminal they'd of course get the vital, searchable clue which can be copy/pasted into a web search:

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$ GNUstep/Applications/Oolite/oolite
./oolite.app/oolite: error while loading shared libraries: libgnustep-base.so.1.28: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Erk. It looks like Oolite died with an error. When making an error report, please copy + paste the log above into the report.

Rather than the opaque "exit code 127", perhaps a more helpful human readable code in the popup like:-

error while loading shared libraries: libgnustep-base.so.1.28: cannot open shared object file.
Please see http://$wiki/$article for a proper clue.

I didn't dive into the source to check, perhaps 127 covers a range of ills, but since the terminal output is informative, I'd hope the popup could be specific too. If a wiki page describes this issue, then the console message should also mention it.

Could the console messages be mirrored in the popup?

First, code 127 can mean a plethora of reasons. Basically it means the executable you tried to launch could not be launched. Not having the correct version of libgnustep is one of them. Not having another shared lib would also yield 127, and having an arm64 binary on an x86 platform would likely yield the same.
So it is required to look at stdout/stderr.

Then look at the process structure:
There is the oolite executable, run by a wrapper to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, which again is run by a wrapper to display error on failure. When wiretapping stdout/stderr we need to grab the content while not blocking it from other users to be able to forward it into the UI. The UI is capable of more.

I apologise for the clear sky thinking on my part. You know that I am an advocate of wrapper scripts, and how I like to use them to simplify cross platform issues. Of course I can grok how it might be tricky to tee stdout/err via the app.

Maybe the catch-all error 127 in the GUI should point to a catch-all wiki page of hints.

I'll get back in my box

[hiran]

I apologise for the clear sky thinking on my part. You know that I am an advocate of wrapper scripts, and how I like to use them to simplify cross platform issues. Of course I can grok how it might be tricky to tee stdout/err via the app.

Maybe the catch-all error 127 in the GUI should point to a catch-all wiki page of hints.

I'll get back in my box

It's ok. Good to question - I only happen to know because I was upset getting no feedback at all when running Oolite. At that time the error could have even been that the first startup went interactive asking for confirmation of the license - on stdout/stdin although there was no terminal when the icon was clicked. I think it is all in the thread I referenced.

I like the wiki page idea. It allows us to put up a good procedure with links to background information.

But we should stop abusing spara's help request thread...

[Cody]

We know the old domain was used to distribute malware.

I do have to ask: where do we know that from? Is there any kind of proof? I very highly doubt it. IMO, that statement is urban legend.

I tend to agree... urban legend!

[Cody]

@spara: if you want your alt deleted, just say the word and someone will oblige.

[hiran]

We know the old domain was used to distribute malware.

I do have to ask: where do we know that from? Is there any kind of proof? I very highly doubt it. IMO, that statement is urban legend.

I tend to agree... urban legend!

I won't disclose my source so I also agree. It is a legend.

[Cholmondely]

The urban legend is mine!

I visited our old website after it was bought to see what was being done with it. After a month or so, my browser blocked me from visiting, warning me that it was virus-ridden. This lasted for a couple of months (3 or 4 visits) and then stopped.

[Wildeblood]

Speaking of suspect-looking websites, when are we getting the dark blue borders and Oolite logo back? An unbranded phpBB installation always looks suspect.

[spara]

@spara: if you want your alt deleted, just say the word and someone will oblige.

Yup, mspara has served it's purpose and can freely be deleted.

[Cody]

Done!

[spara]

Here's what I have found out about my installation issue concerning expansion manager so far. If anyone has any idea what's going on, I would be very happy.

1. Installation is Debian testing that has been originally installed circa 2020. It's been naturally kept up to date, but a lot of thing have happened debian-wise during that time.
2. Everything else I use seems to be working just fine.
3. Oolite 1.90 manager works when I change the address to point to the correct url.
4. Oolite 1.91 (at least the first and last version from github) won't download the oxp list, but gives an exception in the log:

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19:42:49.285 [exception]: ***** Exception checking controls [pollDemoControls]: NSInvalidArgumentException : NSTask - no launch path set

5. I installed a fresh debian 12 to a virtual machine and Oolite 1.91 works just fine.
6. I tried to google the exception and found some answers, but they really don't mean much to me. My best guess is, that Oolite tries to call something that is found from the path of the fresh debian installation and not found from the path of the old debian installation. Can't find anything from other logs.

The only clue I have is that that particular part works in 1.90 and not in 1.91. So any idea what I should be looking at that has changed Linux-wise/Expansion manager-wise between those versions?

[hiran]

So any idea what I should be looking at that has changed Linux-wise/Expansion manager-wise between those versions?

Versions up to and including 1.90 were built by some powerful wizard that is no longer amongst us.

Versions 1.91 are built on Github directly upon each modification - you could say the same recipy interpreted in a different kitchen. Linux 1.91 versions are built on Ubuntu 22. That is based on Debian 12.
https://askubuntu.com/a/445496

The first thing I'd look at would be the executable and the shared libs that get loaded. Just cannot recall the command to be used for that...

[MrFlibble]

So any idea what I should be looking at that has changed Linux-wise/Expansion manager-wise between those versions?

Versions up to and including 1.90 were built by some powerful wizard that is no longer amongst us.

Versions 1.91 are built on Github directly upon each modification - you could say the same recipy interpreted in a different kitchen. Linux 1.91 versions are built on Ubuntu 22. That is based on Debian 12.
https://askubuntu.com/a/445496

The first thing I'd look at would be the executable and the shared libs that get loaded. Just cannot recall the command to be used for that...

Something like

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strace GNUstep/Applications/Oolite/oolite 2>&1 | tee /tmp/crazylog

..might do the trick though you may need to use the strace in that wrapper script, or the one it subsequently calls.

[hiran]

Something like

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strace GNUstep/Applications/Oolite/oolite 2>&1 | tee /tmp/crazylog

..might do the trick though you may need to use the strace in that wrapper script, or the one it subsequently calls.

Good answer. That helps debug a lot of problems.
I was more thinking in a static analysis with the help of readelf or ldd.

Should we collect all of that on a troubleshooting wiki page?

[spara]

Thanks for all this, but still no real progress. I tried strace and ltrace and could not really identify anything useful from them. Command ldd just yields "not a dynamic executable". Command lsof then again was quite informative, but I could not identify anything useful from it. Hmm. This is sort of an interesting puzzle, but I'm not exactly sure how useful this is If the only thing not working is the manager, then there is a workaround, but then again, I'm quite annoyed of computer things not working