Signal-desktop: Desktop: import uses lots of RAM then fails

[ejmg]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

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Bug description

Desktop app crashes/freezes right before completing import process. Prevents usage (non-import setup) afterwards, only repeats error screen and guide for re-attempting and or posting a bug report like this.

Steps to reproduce

• Export from chromium app
• Import file in desktop app
• wait
• crashes right before finishing

Actual result: It fails to import user data from chromium. From what I see in the debugging logs, this seems to occur right before the process would otherwise be successfully completed.

Expected result: Successfully import data from chromium app.

Screenshots

N/A

Platform info

Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04
Browser: Chromium

Chromium | 62.0.3202.62 (Official Build) Built on Ubuntu , running on Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 2c31ab2149989a4e28cc79ae77978536a83535e3-
OS | Linux
JavaScript | V8 6.2.414.32
Flash | 27.0.0.183 /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libpepflashplayer.so
User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu Chromium/62.0.3202.62 Chrome/62.0.3202.62 Safari/537.36
Command Line | /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=27.0.0.183 --enable-pinch --flag-switches-begin --load-media-router-component-extension=0 --flag-switches-end
Executable Path | /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser
Profile Path | /home/[REDACTED]/.config/chromium/Default

Signal version:

Link to debug log

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/efa96e3b587451fc54a827616261e8ea

[scottnonnenberg]

What exactly do you see? As the import process is about to finish, the app just goes away? Or do you see some sort of error?

Every time it starts up, it thinks that it failed in the middle of the import. But the log seems to indicate that the backup did complete.

[ejmg]

Wi-Fi is horrible at my uni, sorry for email response.

It's the first case you just outlined as it does seem to actually finish
but crashes for seemingly no reason.

On Oct 31, 2017 5:56 PM, "Scott Nonnenberg" [e-mail]
wrote:

What exactly do you see? As the import process is about to finish, the app
just goes away? Or do you see some sort of error?

Every time it starts up, it thinks that it failed in the middle of the
import. But the log seems to indicate that the backup did complete.

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You are receiving this because you authored the thread.
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[scottnonnenberg]

Before we show the screen with the final 'restart now' button, we wait for a few database writes to finish, which tell us that we've finished the import. So during that time, our outstanding database writes are resolved. I suspect that, given a conversation of 32k messages, all those updates to the database finally overwhelm things.

Can you watch memory and CPU statistics on Signal and its helper processes the next time you attempt the import?

[ejmg]

Sure, how would I do that? Developer tools within signal? Or am I looking for an actual subprocess in top/system monitor on my OS?

[scottnonnenberg]

OS tools will be enough for this.

[ejmg]

Did not get a screenshot on the first attempt, but the main signal process and one sub-process hit 1.5 and 1.9 gigabytes of memory respectively. Attempted again and got similar results as shown in the attached screenshot:

[ejmg]

Hey, let me know if I'm still needed at this point as I'll gladly holdout from doing a clean install w/o importing if it helps you all debug this.

Otherwise, I'll just go that way to get around this!

[scottnonnenberg]

We can always come back and try to import your exported data again. Feel free to install from scratch. :0)

[scottnonnenberg]

@ejmg I'm assuming that you moved forward in using the Standalone Signal Desktop without any kind of import. So, if that's the case, you should re-enable your Chrome App with the steps here: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/115002574192

Once you've done that and it has caught up to all the messages that have flown by this week, you can do another export, and then try an import with the next release of Signal Desktop Standalone, which will have the changes in #1698 in it. Hopefully it will unblock the import for you!

(to retry import, you'll want to close Standalone Signal Desktop, then go find its data directory on disk (described at the bottom of this article) and rename it. when you start Standalone again, it will start up to the setup screen. You can always go back to that previous data by putting your original data directory back)

[scottnonnenberg]

Signal Desktop 1.0.36 was released today. Please try the import again - I expect that it will do a lot better with very large inputs.

[scottnonnenberg]

Signal Desktop 1.0.38 was released today. It has further improvements for large-scale import. Take a look!

[ejmg]

1) your comment spooked me because I logged in to check your previous replies at the exact moment you bumped this post with the updated release, thought you'd find that funny given I somehow read your mind a few hundred miles away or so

2) it appears the chrome app directions no longer apply to me because I uninstalled it and that(?) must have deleted all of my history. Re-installing it and following the directions in the links above does nothing with respect to restoring my messages so I can re-export them, etc.

3) Luckily!!! I kept my export-logs from when I last attempted to export/import and can report that the import process ended successfully. :tada: :tada: :tada: :tada:
- fwiw, I can report that memory usage stayed under a sane level of usage and that the initial import process itself was relatively speedy.
- fwiw pt2, after restarting it, it gave me the loading messages. X so far status page for about 3 mins max. For the amount I use this app, I would consider that a speedy catch up time.

If you need any more help (debugging log, etc) that would be of use for feedback purposes, please let me know. I'm extremely thankful for all the work you and everyone else at WS do for the greater community, so don't hesitate to ask! Thanks again! :slightly_smiling_face: