Can't add urpmi channel in Mandriva 2010.1 with Smart 1.3.1 or 1.4, AND >98% CPU load

[Steve Morris]

On 12/11/10 13:15, David wrote:
>  Anders, thanks for the quick response.
>
> On 11/11/10 23:45, Anders F Björklund wrote:
>> 11 nov 2010 kl. 13.57 skrev David:
>>
>>> With a fresh installation of Smart, either 1.3.1 or 1.4 (Mandriva
>>> builds), when trying to add an urpmi channel it fails with the
>>> message: "Base URL (baseurl) and Mirror List URL (mirrorurl) cannot
>>> both be specified as fields for 'urpmi' channels," however I have
>>> only entered information into "Base URL" and "Header List URL"
>>> nothing into "Mirror List URL."
>> Did you try the smart "mandriva" branches (from trunk) too ?
>>
>> https://code.launchpad.net/~afb/smart/mandriva
>> https://code.launchpad.net/~afb/smart/urpmisync
>>
>> That is where I tried to merge things from the mandriva fork.
> I will look at this in the next few days and let you know.
I have previously tried these branches and the first one had the same
problem as the native Mandriva 1.3.1 which if I remember correctly was
an xml failure (I think it complained the compressed xml file was not
valid), and the 2nd, as I have already reported, in my view was
horrendous. When doing a channel sync it downloaded the synthesis file
for every mirror specified in the mirror list and displayed its progress
bar at well past 100%.

As a side issue, where did you get the Mandriva build of 1.4 for 2010.1
from? The Australian mirror I am using only has 1.3.1 for both the 64
bit and 32 versions.

regards,
Steve

>>> Has anyone seen this problem and has a solution? Perhaps it only
>>> occurs on Mandriva 2010.1 using Mandriva builds of Smart? Could it
>>> be since Mandriva have started linking Smart to their own mirror lists?
>>> I have deleted both /var/lib/smart and /usr/lib/smart and retried
>>> with freshly initialised configuration, but have same problem.
>> Not sure how those mirror lists work, so you would need examples.
> I'm not either, I need to investigate further, it's a very useful feature
>>> Please note however that there are also other issues that now make
>>> Smart (1.4 at least) virtually unusable (on Fedora 13 too),
>>> being>98% cpu utilisation during channel refresh or package
>>> download, and no progress indication whatever, as if the Smart
>>> package has crashed but it hasn't; if one waits long enough task
>>> completes, only visual feedback is broken. This affects both i586
>>> and 64 bit systems.
>> Sounds like glib bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/smart/+bug/592503
>>
>> Does it work OK from console ? In Qt ? With the workaround branch ?
> I will try the workaround and get back to you. It's probably worth
> mentioning that the visual feedback in Smart has always intermittently
> failed to operate, all previous versions of Smart, Mandriva and Fedora
> back for a few years. Previous failure mode was not so serious in that
> dialog came up but bar never appeared, or sometimes bar appeared
> momentarily as a flash on 100%, sometimes bar operated normally,
> progressively. This has never been an issue with any other gtk apps
> I've used, could it be that either python or smart are calling the
> supporting libraries in an unintended way for this feedback dialog?
>>> Note that Smart does work on Mandriva 2010.1 if using the Mandriva
>>> supplied init script for Smart which links Smart to Mandriva's auto
>>> mirror list - HOWEVER - Smart always crashes on startup until
>>> reconfiguring the Mandriva channels manually. In a day or two, it's
>>> necessary to reconfigure the channels manually again otherwise Smart
>>> again crashes on startup. The error message escapes me right now but
>>> Smart seems to think one or more channels is corrupt (they're not
>>> because they still work in Mandriva's package manager).
>> Hard to know, since they are using their own version of Smart...
> I had a brief look at the branches you'd like to merge above, it
> triggered my memory, this is I think an xml error, perhaps related to
> the xml changes in one of these branches - I'm going to try each
> branch as soon as I can and get back to you. I will also set Smart up
> again as Mandriva ship, so that we can get the exact error.
>>> I have been using Smart for about 5 years now in preference to the
>>> Mandriva supplied package manager and this is the first time I have
>>> had issues trying to configure channels or anything else. Thanks
>>> Gustavo and others who have given us Smart, for (normally) a
>>> great     package manager.
>>>
>>> If I can be of any help in sorting out these issues by providing
>>> feedback on any bugfix patches on either Mandriva or Fedora, please
>>> let me know. Smart is a great program and I'd love to have it
>>> working well again as soon as possible.
>> If those branches above help, the idea is for them to be merged.
>>
>> --anders
> David
>
>