Bug 1963189

Thanks for a bug report. it looks like there was not found any application in the category, at least the log suggests that. It had been checking the flatpak plugin. The log also shows there's some issue with the PackageKit plugin, but I do not see what it is from the log.

I agree. It's odd. in looking at the log I uploaded it's clear that it's trying. Stellarium is a Scientific app for example and I see the GSPluginpackagekit fails.

Is there a way to get increased verbosity? I'm happy to assist in troubleshooting in any way that I can.
---
15:53:49:0115 PK  role now resolve
15:53:49:0115 GsPluginPackageKit Failed to find all packages for:
GsApp: [0x7f08bc007660]
kind:                desktop
state:               unknown
id:                  org.stellarium.Stellarium
unique-id:           system/package/*/desktop/org.stellarium.Stellarium/*
scope:               system
bundle-kind:         package
kudo-percentage:     0
name:                Stellarium
icon-kind:           cached
icon-name:           org.stellarium.Stellarium.png
icon-prefix:         /usr/share/app-info/icons/epel-8
summary:             Desktop Planetarium
source-00:           stellarium
content-age:         0
content-rating:      oars-1.1
launchable{desktop-id}: stellarium.desktop
reviews:             0
provides:            2
category:            Astronomy
category:            Education
category:            Science
{GnomeSoftware::Creator}: appstream
{appstream::source-file}: /usr/share/app-info/xmls/epel-8.xml.gz

Not sure if this is related (would seem to be) but I opened up the appstream source file referenced at the bottom. There are some URLs in the xml file that point to thumbnails, I checked and they aren't on the server. 

https://access.redhat.com/webassets/avalon/g/gnome-software/screenshots/
624x351/org.stellarium.Stellarium-2ca37ab8df3c343a1de80d02776c7ac0.png

The log you provided is at the maximum debug verbosity level, pity it doesn't claim also the error for the failure. I checked the code and the applications are gathered from the appstream files (mostly). The Stellarium example you pasted above has three categories.

I've enabled EPEL too, but I do not face this, I can see the applications in the Games and the Education & Science sections with no problem.

I see I had added also Flathub in the Flatpak. Once I removed it the view of the applications is heavily limited. There are many Education & Science applications (24), but only a few games (5, all coming from the EPEL). The PackageKit plugin doesn't claim any error here, maybe that's the reason, why it works here.

Thinking of it, maybe the PackageKit cache is broken in some way. Could you run :

   $ pkcon refresh force

then close the gnome-software:

  $ gnome-software --quit

or just `pkill gnome-software`, and then run the gnome-software from a terminal, to see whether it helped, please?

I verified in the Software Repositories dialog in the GNOME Software (under the menu button on the right of the window's title bar) that the "Extra EPEL" repository is enabled before I ran the pkcon command.

Tried the pkcon commands. Still nothing. Looked for the "Extra EPEL" repository. It's not in the list of repositories in the vanilla base install. 

I loaded RHEL 8.4 vanilla in a VM to confirm. But is still there.

Created attachment 1837051 [details]
Screenshot

(In reply to doug.baggett from comment #7)
> Looked for the "Extra EPEL" repository. It's not in the list of repositories in the vanilla base install. 

That's correct, users can add it, but the default installation doesn't have it.

> I loaded RHEL 8.4 vanilla in a VM to confirm. But is still there.

Right. From my point of view the behaviour is correct. The default repositories do not have any Game, neither Education and Science application, thus the categories are empty. Once the repositories are added, being it EPEL or Flathub.org, the categories will show the applications.

Was this a change documented somewhere? I filed the bug because it was part of the prior releases.

Not complaining, I just wouldn't of filed it had I known that was the case.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what change you mean. I do not think there changed anything on the gnome-software side. When no application is available in certain category, then the category is empty, or with a limited content only (when only few applications are available in that category).

I do not know whether anything changed with respect of the default repositories setup, I'm sorry.