Gajim - 2025-09-27

I suddenly have several MUCs where all the messages since the last time I started it are simply not listed. However, the chats list _does_ show a preview of those last messages, so Gajim did receive them. The messages show just fine in other clients. Restarting Gajim does not make them appear either.

I also couldn't find the messages by searching for what the message preview in the chat list showed. New messages that are sent afterwards do show up, but evidently there's holes in the history now. ✏

And now the preview in the chat list shows one of the missing messages, even though a newer message is already present _and_ shown in the history.

Sounds very weird

Care to look in the database if they are there?

Or enable debug logging and check if there are errors when loading

Is only one MUC affacred?

hi

> Or enable debug logging and check if there are errors when loading I couldn't find errors, but the debug log is insane (8MB after a few seconds), so it's quite difficult to get through, plus it's a privacy nightmare, so I'd rather not post it. Any keywords I should look for? ↺

> Is only one MUC affacred? No, all of them. ↺

> Care to look in the database if they are there? They can't _not_ be there, because they show as message previews in the chat list. ↺

But... this is ridiculous. I wish I made screenshots, because even after multiple restarts of Gajim (and _with_ the presence of those messages in the chat list previews), they did not show and couldn't be found via search, but now, all those messages _are_ showing. What the hell?

Damn it... I think I've got a possible reason... the clock! I dual-booted into Linux, which tends to set back the clock 2 hours when booting to Windows (I still have to check the reason for that). The messages were within that time slot of 2 hours. Let's see if I can reproduce.

Yess, that's it!

@devs: https://conference.gajim.org:5281/pastebin/013a6ea2-1a01-45f5-babe-02c9a7821373 ✏

@devs: https://conference.gajim.org:5281/pastebin/e557c4ca-1eab-40db-bd15-8b8dca32be13 ✏

I used `locate` to figure out if i have the icon it tries to find. I do: ``` /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.gajim.Gajim/aarch64/stable/270e422730acd6214a37fb125a793ddf6a0b6b223eda62d46ce15ba948e4052f/files/lib/python3.13/site-packages/gajim/data/icons/hicolor/scalable/devices/lucide-cloud-off-symbolic.svg /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.gajim.Gajim/aarch64/stable/270e422730acd6214a37fb125a793ddf6a0b6b223eda62d46ce15ba948e4052f/files/lib/python3.13/site-packages/gajim/data/icons/hicolor/scalable/devices/lucide-cloud-off.svg ```

> @devs: > https://conference.gajim.org:5281/pastebin/e557c4ca-1eab-40db-bd15-8b8dca32be13 https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/-/issues/12473 ↺

Just got fixed ;)

> https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/-/issues/12473 awesome! ↺

> Damn it... I think I've got a possible reason... the clock! I dual-booted into Linux, which tends to set back the clock 2 hours when booting to Windows (I still have to check the reason for that). The messages were within that time slot of 2 hours. Let's see if I can reproduce. that's because traditionnally linux set the system clock to UTC while windows set it to local time. I think you should be able to configure your linux such that it follows windows behaviour (or the other way around). Anyway it's a rather common issue with dualbooting windows and linux, I'm sure there are workarounds. ↺

voidlinux happens to document this, it's that windows doesn't use UTC by default and this will conflict, the fix is to set `HARDWARECLOCK=localtime` globally (e.g `rc.conf`, `/etc/environment`)

(source: https://docs.voidlinux.org/config/date-time.html#hardware-clock )

alexia, thx! I found an alternative fix `sudo timedatectl set-local-rtc 1`, but when applying it, it gave me a long warning that it could really cause issues with e.g. summertime.

oh huh, TIL

Maybe it's better to change this in Windows and leave the default in Linux: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/System_time#Dual_booting_with_Windows

indeed we query the database with timestamps, basically give me everything before now()

if now() is 2 hours in the past, you will not see the two hours

Isn't that a bit odd? "give me everything after ..." makes sense, but everything before now()?

I'm saying this, because I've seen this cause issues, even with the clock set to the right time: new messages simply wouldn't show up in the chat, but they would in the chat list message preview.

And if your local time changes due to travel or spoofing, you won't be able to see the latest messages.

i think you are confusing 2 different things

changing a timezone in your DE does not change your system clock

It does in Windows

By default, that is. Unless you change a registry value (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/System_time#Dual_booting_with_Windows) which nobody does.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html#time.time

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/sysinfoapi/nf-sysinfoapi-getsystemtimepreciseasfiletime

> The retrieved information is in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) format.

so Gajim should always store in UTC

independent of the OS

Okay, it could be that it _stores_ in UTC, but the history sure doesn't, otherwise I couldn't have reproduced the issue by manually turning back the clock.

And apparently it's also an issue when the clock is only seconds behind, which can happen for anyone, so it's a real problem, I'd say.

why, thats exactly what happens when you turn the clock back, your now() changes 2 hours because you adjusted system time

turning your clock back is not equivalent with changing a timezone

Ah that's true.

i can see that there can be a problem, if your system time is wrong, especially if the server has another time

The problem remains that if the clock is just a few seconds behind, which is a very plausible situation, then Gajim's current implementation of the chat history panel might not show the most recent messages because of the "get messages up until now()" logic.

so yes good observation, i think we need to adjust the query

https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/-/issues/12479

There's a bug in the title 😉 but thx!

Hello! Is there a way to add calls and videocalls in Gajim?

no

> Hello! Is there a way to add calls and videocalls in Gajim? Send a Jitsi link and you're good to go 😉 ↺

my parents wouldn't agree xD

> The problem remains that if the clock is just a few seconds behind, which is a very plausible situation, then Gajim's current implementation of the chat history panel might not show the most recent messages because of the "get messages up until now()" logic. oh that's what causes it ↺

lovetox pushed 1 commits to branch gajim/master imprv: Delete more metadata when purging history - https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/-/commit/2ebab009fdf658b37db51c41b10754552668c876

> Maybe it's better to change this in Windows and leave the default in Linux: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/System_time#Dual_booting_with_Windows 👍 ↺

> Hello! Is there a way to add calls and videocalls in Gajim? 👍 ↺

> no 😭 ↺

> my parents wouldn't agree xD 👍 ↺

mesonium:

danielstein: ?