Signal-desktop: When minimized, Signal wants to gain focus every minute (taskbar orange flashing)

[ArthurusDent]

I don't know whether the issue description is correctly phrased so let me describe what happens:

I'm on Windows 10 using Chrome 47.0.2526.106 m (64-bit).

Steps to reproduce:

1. Start Signal Desktop.
2. Minimize it to the task bar.
3. Maximize it.
4. Minimize it again.
5. Signal will try to gain attention by flashing its task bar icon orange.
6. Maximize Signal.
7. Minimize Signal.
8. Signal will try gain attention again; and so on...

The time between flashing orange seems to vary. The first time I noticed this it was every four minutes. The second time (after a complete reboot of my system) it was one minute. I haven't tried whether restarting Chrome changes anything about the rhythm.

Restarting Signal doesn't help.

This seems to have happened after the update to version 1.5. Might be a coincidence, though.

Debug log: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/ccaa6b32caca31f3a969

[ArthurusDent]

I just updated to 0.1.8 and now the plugin can be started, as looking at the logs proves, but the window never appears. Nothing interesting in the logs so far, apart from an occasional network error.

This means I'm going to reinstall.

EDIT:
Didn't reinstall. I deleted the device from my phone and re-paired. Now the window appears again and messaging works. But the pop-up issue remains.

[liliakai]

Still reproducible? We now have better logging around the window drawing/clearing attention, so it'd nice to get a debug log of the events you describe.

[ArthurusDent]

Yes, it's still reproducible. Here is the debug log: https://gist.github.com/266807b3457fc2d12bdd

I'm kind of asking myself whether I've just botched my installation because with 20K installs there should be somebody with the same problem and I wouldn't want you to spend your time on something that probably doesn't happen to other people.

Which brings me to my next point: just reinstalling the plugin doesn't change anything. Would I have to clear the plugin data through ctrl+shift+del too?

[liliakai]

From the log, it looks like we _did not_ call drawAttention, which is the only way we have to trigger the flashing, and we _did_ call clearAttention, which is the only way we have to stop the flashing. Fwiw/iirc, I've seen some similar behavior with the bouncing dock icon on OSX. So I don't think it's just you, but I also have no idea what's causing it. Possibly a chrome bug.

[ArthurusDent]

OK, thanks. If you come up with an idea how I may help, just let me know!

[agrajaghh]

I'm experiencing the same on Windows 10 with Chrome 48.0.2564.116 and Signal 0.3.1. The log is full of clear attention entries at the end, but Chrome continues blinking occasionally...

[adi64]

I'm also experiencing the same. Windows 10, Chrome 49.0.2623.112, Signal 0.9.0.
Did anybody find the cause or a workaround?
The only two other extensions in Chrome are Google Docs (default) and Google Cast.

[adi64]

This is fixed for me with Signal 0.11.0 (don't know about 0.10.0).

[ArthurusDent]

Same here. Although I'm unsure whether this has been fixed by accident. No commit seems to reference this issue.

[adi64]

I have a regression with Signal 0.13.0 as it again wants to gain focus every few minutes. I have no idea if this is connected to keepalive message, but my log usually looks like this:

2016-06-01T14:27:16.797Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:28:11.910Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:28:34.885Z clear attention
2016-06-01T14:29:07.021Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:30:02.136Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:30:57.332Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:31:52.446Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:32:47.563Z sending keepalive
2016-06-01T14:33:04.523Z clear attention

[ArthurusDent]

I have no regression with 0.13.0.

[liliakai]

Nothing has changed that should affect this issue. Did your browser update recently?

[ArthurusDent]

Yep, it's definitely an issue with a new Chrome version. After the update to 51.0.2704.84 m (64-bit) Signal wants to gain attention again.

[Blueghost1]

Here's the debug.txt for my Windows 10 system, which turns on the red background for the icon, which normally indicates a new message, but does it every couple of minutes even though there's no new message.

https://gist.github.com/fdde199983559bbe3a25fa7b87fa84ca

I decided to actually time this anomaly today. I'd been going on guesstimates before. It's happening every 45 seconds, apparently every time it polls to see if there are new messages. In the past it would apparently poll frequently, but it would not turn the icon red unless there was actually a new message. The icon stays red unless clicked on to view the app.

[AlfonsoMuskedunder]

The desktop icon in the task bar turns red every five minutes here. The behavior resembles the one described in the previous post; however, the log looks a bit different:

2016-09-22T10:39:10.852Z clear attention
2016-09-22T10:44:40.532Z clear attention
2016-09-22T10:48:48.923Z clear attention
2016-09-22T10:53:04.478Z clear attention
2016-09-22T10:56:43.457Z clear attention
2016-09-22T10:57:50.346Z clear attention

The icon turned red at 10:43, 10:48, and 10:53 (so I guess the log entries mark the point when I opened Signal's window?).

(I'm on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.116 Safari/537.36 Signal-Desktop/0.22.2.)

[Trolldemorted]

Now (0.25.2) my signal icon does not turn orange at all (W10 N 64bit). Am i the only one or do you have the same issue?

[adi64]

I definitely had the same issue in the last few days on Windows 10. Everything was fine on Linux with Chromium, though.

[Norapinephrine]

I've been having the same issue, also on Windows 10.

[james-murphy-dev]

Also having this issue.

[riyapenn]

Please refrain from adding "Also having this issue." "Me too" "+1" without adding any new or actionable information. If you really want, you can 'Add your reaction' by going to the emoji in the top right of the header.

[tjharman]

How can I assist with debugging this issue?
It makes using Signal for Chrome annoying.

I have a Windows 10, Chrome Version 55.0.2883.87 m (64-bit)

Debug Log: https://gist.github.com/89497a249dd49e9f1828ebaba7bcb462

[Trolldemorted]

@tjharman i guess it is a chrome bug, and since google abandoned the chrome app platform i doubt there will be a fix.

[AJolly]

I get this issue without ever minimizing signal. This is despite turning all notifications off in signal.

[oliversalzburg]

Wow, this has been happening for over a year and is being ignored. No need to get my hopes up then.

[Trolldemorted]

There is not much we can do. You might try to complain at chrome's bugtracker, but i doubt they will bother to fix it.

[oliversalzburg]

@Trolldemorted Why? I'm not too familiar with how Chrome apps work, but if this is something that can be traced back to Chrome, I'd be happy to report it on their tracker.

That this is something that is completely out of the control of this client is currently hard to believe, but I also haven't educated myself.

[Trolldemorted]

As lilia stated here, you can set breakpoints to all drawAttention calls, verify that signal is never triggering the flashing, and complain at chrome's repositories.

But chrome apps are deprecated and will be removed soon, i doubt they will care about this.

[oliversalzburg]

Just because it's not explicitly triggered doesn't mean the application isn't to blame for it happening. It might just as well be neglecting to properly configure a component.

[oliversalzburg]

Are there any existing assumptions as to the cause of this? Because I now have a system where this is happening and one were it isn't. And on the system were I have the problem, it happens like every 30-60 seconds. So there's a good chance to do some productive debugging.

Finding out that this is caused by some combination of installed extensions or Chrome settings would already be very helpful to possibly get this behavior under control.

So far I had no luck debugging. When I'm inspecting the Signal window with DevTools it appears like it's only a wrapper and the actual application code is running somewhere else.

Any help is appreciated :)

[ScottYates]

I have the same issue, and it seems to happen with both Signal and Hangouts. It behaves the same way in both applications. This leads me to believe it is a problem with the chrome wrapper maybe?

[oliversalzburg]

So, after quite a bit of debugging, I came to the same conclusion others reached before me, this is not an issue in Signal itself, but with the underlying technology being used. This is also confirmed by reports of the identical issue with other application that use the same technology.

Given that I have 1 system with the issue and 1 without, I started to trim away differences in the hope to find the culprit that causes Chrome to produce this problem - no luck.

Interestingly enough, I'm also affected by some other apparently rare and unreproducible bug in Chrome. Something about my setup just doesn't play well with Chrome :\

Because this behavior is unacceptable to me, I've moved away from this client. If someone else is depending on it, maybe a patch like this can bring relief:

window.drawAttention = function() {
    if (inboxOpened && !inboxFocused) {
        if( window.keepClear ) {
            clearInterval( window.keepClear );
            delete window.keeClear;
        }
        extension.windows.drawAttention(inboxWindowId);
    }
};
window.clearAttention = function() {
    if( window.keepClear ) {
        clearInterval( window.keepClear );
        delete window.keeClear;
    }
    window.keepClear = setInterval( () => extension.windows.clearAttention(inboxWindowId), 100 );
};

[ScottYates]

@oliversalzburg , thank you for the patch. I have applied it and am very thankful for your help!
I am looking into the hangouts code, and only found one instance of drawAttention. Will see if my little patch helps. If so, I may make it available there as well.

Thank you for inspiring me to have a closer look!

[TurkeyMan]

This is really annoying...
A comment above says that this is a Chrome issue, and then that Chrome apps are deprecated and so it won't be addressed... does that imply that Signal is deprecated?
Is there a plan to replace the Signal Chrome app with a proper desktop client?

[ScottYates]

That is a good question. What is Signal going to do in the future if Chrome Apps are deprecated?

[scottnonnenberg]

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/tree/electron :0)

[TurkeyMan]

Oh god, not another electron app!!
Can't it just be GTK or something? I'm tired of these 200 mb installs that take 100's of mb of ram and ages to startup, just because developers are obsessed with javascript these days! >_<

[scottnonnenberg]

@TurkeyMan I'm going to engage with you at my own peril. I encourage you to think about this problem in detail: You have minimal resources. You have a substantial codebase already in web technologies. Chrome Apps are being deprecated. What do you do?

Electron does seem like a reasonable next step given the context. Download sizes I've seen so far are far less than 200mb.

[TurkeyMan]

@scottnonnenberg Okay, I can accept that reasoning if it's a case of simple migration from Chrome app to electron. I would REALLY love a lightweight client though :)

I really hate this modern trend of cluttering my machine with an endless torrent of electron apps. And, strangely, it's always the smallest most trivial of apps that seem to insist on using electron. Tiny apps using gigantic resources. It's weird... or, lazy (I suspect) ;)

[clottman]

Am I understanding this is a wont-fix issue? It's been happening for over a year now and is really annoying. What's the target date for a production version of the electron app?

[scottnonnenberg]

We're working hard to get Electron ready! Target date is soon!

[koiulpoi]

Having found a similar problem (people seem to have it with Hangouts as well), a potential solution was to install 32-bit Chrom(e/ium) instead of 64-bit. I have attempted this myself, and Signal's annoying constant notification has stopped.

[CedricBrandt]

I am experiencing a similar issue. The icon flashes on each "clearAttention" call. According to the debug log, it is called every 2.25 minutes.

[thrdroom]

@scottnonnenberg Its being more then a month now since you said the "Target date is soon" :-) Can you now give us more detailed information about a releasedate? Can we have beta binaries please?

[scottnonnenberg]

@thrdroom We're absolutely making progress. We are running a very small internal beta right now. If you're really interested in being part of that Beta, please contact me directly.

You are always free to download and run the electron version anytime. Pull down this branch: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/tree/electron

To get it running:

1. Install node.js (likely via nvm, v6.11.1 will work)
2. npm install -g yarn
3. yarn install
4. yarn run dist-prod # you'll need key dev tools to build everything here
5. yarn run start # by default this is staging, you can run against production with NODE_ENV=production yarn run start

[tehDrew]

Happens on Windows 8.1 x64 (Chrome version Version 60.0.3112.78 (Official Build) (64-bit)) as well. Thank you guys at OWS for the amount of time/effort you put into supporting an already excellent product 👍

[anubiann00b]

@scottnonnenberg The steps to get it running you gave here are different from the ones in CONTRIBUTING.md, from a couple months ago. Which are correct/better? Can I submit a PR to update those instructions with the ones you put here?

[trentyarwood]

It looks to me like the trigger for the notification is the time counter changing - ie "4 minutes ago" > "5 minutes ago" > "6 minutes ago" is recorded as two changes and will notify for each of them when they happen.

[mnns]

Also happens for me. Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

[Aeronaut]

Same on my System. Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit, Chrome Version 60.0.3112.90

[ScottYates]

For now, you can fix it by replacing one file.
Search in the subfolders of AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\ for panel_controller.js

replace it with the file in this .zip.

panel_controller.zip

Note: you should kill ALL instances of chrome before you do this.

[ScottYates]

I did just submit a pull request with this patch in it. Left instructions here, in case it was helpful or the patch was not up to standards for the project.

[ghost]

@beernutz Thanks, the panel_controller.js patch worked for me.

[scottnonnenberg]

Hey everyone. 0.42.7 has a fix which attempts to prevent the continuous icon flashing, thanks to @beernutz. Take a look!

[tjharman]

Sadly it seems worse for me today?
It's constantly highlighting the window now. Not flashing, just highlighted. :(
Thanks for trying though.

Signal Desktop: 0.43.0
Windows 10
Chrome Version 60.0.3112.113 (Official Build) (64-bit)

[ScottYates]

@tjharman That is really odd. It seems to have fixed the issue for myself and a few friends that use it. You are probably completely on top of this, but are you sure it got fully updated and restarted? I tend to pull up task manager and kill all chrome processes first, then kill signal after. It seems like sometimes chrome will not release the resources and realize there are new files to load. This is completely anecdotal though.

[tjharman]

@beernutz Yea, I think I owe you (and people following this thread) an apology. Once I fully closed Chrome and tested it, it does now appear to be working correctly. I haven't received many messages today though, but the terrible issue I was encountering has certainly gone.

Next time before I shoot my mouth off I'll try a few things, then provide a proper debug log.

Apologies all for the noise, thanks again @beernutz for the fix.

[ScottYates]

@tjharman lol, not a problem at all. It is not immediately obvious that it requires so much effort to get a new version recognized. I am just glad it helps! 8)

[scottnonnenberg]

I'm closing this, given the release of Standalone Signal Desktop.