[Freedombox-discuss] Plinth fails to start, over and over...

Thu Oct 19 19:57:04 UTC 2017

Just did a massive upgrade on a testing FreedomBox image (32GB SD card).
This particular card had stopped working some months ago so I stopped
using it.  Now I'm trying to resurrect it.

I can get into it via ssh and after some hiccups, all the upgraded packages
seem to have been installed correctly.  However, the web interface reports:

Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/2.4.27 (Debian) Server at fbx Port 443

The relevant error seems to be:

Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/network.py", line 32, in <module>
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     nm = import_from_gi('NM', '1.0')

Does this mean it's importing Network Manager version 1.0?  The currently
installed network-manager is version 1.8.4-3.  Or is 1.0 the minimum
required?  In any case, plinth (0.15.2+ds-1) doesn't seem to like it.

Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/utils.py", line 38, in import_from_gi
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     package.require_version(library, version)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 118, in require_version
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     raise ValueError('Namespace %s not available' % namespace)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]: ValueError: Namespace NM not available
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx systemd[1]: plinth.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE

The following shows up in daemon.log again and again (the file is now 1.1G):

Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/bin/plinth", line 21, in <module>
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     plinth.__main__.main()
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/__main__.py", line 357, in main
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     configure_django()
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/__main__.py", line 271, in configure_django
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     django.setup(set_prefix=True)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/django/__init__.py", line 27, in setup
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/django/apps/registry.py", line 85, in populate
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     app_config = AppConfig.create(entry)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/django/apps/config.py", line 94, in create
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     module = import_module(entry)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3.5/importlib/__init__.py", line 126, in import_module
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 985, in _gcd_import
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 968, in _find_and_load
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 957, in _find_and_load_unlocked
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 673, in _load_unlocked
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 697, in exec_module
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 222, in _call_with_frames_removed
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/modules/networks/__init__.py", line 27, in <module>
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     from plinth import network
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/network.py", line 32, in <module>
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     nm = import_from_gi('NM', '1.0')
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/utils.py", line 38, in import_from_gi
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     package.require_version(library, version)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 118, in require_version
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]:     raise ValueError('Namespace %s not available' % namespace)
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx plinth[25774]: ValueError: Namespace NM not available
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx systemd[1]: plinth.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 19 18:56:08 fbx systemd[1]: plinth.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 19 18:56:09 fbx systemd[1]: plinth.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Oct 19 18:56:09 fbx systemd[1]: plinth.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 13537.
Oct 19 18:56:09 fbx systemd[1]: Stopped Plinth Web Interface.
Oct 19 18:56:09 fbx systemd[1]: Started Plinth Web Interface.
...

And it goes on and on.

Network Manager is running:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager status
 NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2017-10-19 18:23:38 UTC; 1h 3min ago
     Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
 Main PID: 22419 (NetworkManager)
    Tasks: 3 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/NetworkManager.service
           └─22419 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon

Warning: Journal has been rotated since unit was started. Log output is incomplete or unavailable.

The basic functionality appears to be working.  I can get on the internet
and radicale's CardDav interface works.  CalDav (with korganizer) has a
problem I'm looking into.

Is there anything I can do short of diving into the plinth code?  Is the
version number issue the real problem or is it something else?  Any specific
tests I should run in order to narrow this down?

Thanks!

Augustine

PS: the other SD card (4GB), also running testing works fine.  The
repeated network manager errors are gone and the partition expansion
worked. 