Description of problem: I do extremely often use a feature in gaim, which in combination with another feature in gnome-panel-screenshot is extremely usefull: when you hit printscreen, gnome-panel-screenshot gives you a preview, and if you drag that preview into gaim it initiates a filetransfer of this picture. This works by creating a a .png file in /tmp, and gaim then tries to send this file. Problem arises when i hit cancel on "gnome-panel-screenshot" BEFORE the other party accnowledges - then gnome-panel-screenshot does it duty and deletes it. But if the other party accnowledges before you hit cancel, it still gets deleted - and transfered... It seems that the file can be deleted, but still exist - to gaim, but not to ex cat... The file is then sucessfully transfered, and gets deleted when gaim is finshed. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): gaim-0.82-0.FC2 How reproducible: every time Steps to Reproduce: 1.hit "print-screen" while in gnome 2.drag the preview over to the conversation window in gaim 3.File transfer proposed 4.hit "cancel" in the preview-window 5.Other party hits accept. Gets an empty (NULL?) file - dowloaded at "infinite" speed - but nothing is sent. Actual results: nothing sent Expected results: gaim should open the file as soon as it gets the order to transfer it, which will ensure both the cleanup AND the transfer, or at least an error message... Additional info: Output from lsof: gaim 29484 kyrre 10r REG 3,2 294209 6815794 /tmp/gnome-panel-screenshot-1946205200/Skjermdump.png (deleted)
As a data point, many other chat clients (including ircII derivatives and naim) will exhibit similar behavior: The file is statted to determine file size, but is not opened until file transfer begins. In a Unix-like environment, files exist on disk independently from their location in a directory tree. Hardlinks work by having multiple entries in the directory tree reference the same file. Files can be moved from one directory location to another by simply changing a link; they do not need to change locations on disk. Files are kept on disk until all "references" to them have been removed. References include entries in a directory tree linking to the file as well as instances of the file being opened by a running process. Once a file has lost all directory references (meaning you have used the rm command to remove all links to the file), it can typically not be recovered. However, it will continue to exist in whole until the last process that has it open closes it. This is why gaim is able to continue to deliver the file even after the directory link has been removed.
Interesting - i am beginning to love Unix more and more the more i use it :) But what if gaim simply opened the file the moment it got the message to transfer it? To copy it to its own tmp would be idiotic - some moron could attempt to transfer a multi-GB file over IM... - but if gaim had just opened it at once, there would be no problem - the OS will take care of the details. But what if the directory which contains the file is deleted? Btw. i also love dragging stuff into the conversation window - files from nautilus, mails from evolution, music from rythmbox, print-screens etc. It is just so laughingly perfect! Only problem is that i break GAIM all the time... Think i got somthing like 4 out of 6 bugzilla bugs for gaim in FC2 now!
Please re-test with 1.0.2, is behavior any different?
very much indeed still there... other party was using 1.0, should that have anything to say in this matter?
reciving party has now upgraded. It just imediatly finished. Bug is definatly still there...
This is a behavior of the upstream gaim project, and is not specific to Red Hat's packaging. Several upstream developers will read this report, so I will leave it up to one of them to handle it from here (or close the report if the behavior described is not considered a bug).
The behaviour is definatly a bug. Argh... where is my sf.net password... (I created it once to give some info on a gaim bug which was moved from RH bugzilla...)
There is no reason to file a sourceforge bug, as Mr. Reed already pointed out. Several Gaim developers monitor this forum. I agree that this is a bug, Gaim should at the least notify you that the file could not be sent. File transfer and related behaviors are not generally very high on the priority list, so I don't know when this might be fixed, but it is certainly something we want to take care of. Ethan
in the sf tracker i've just been marking file transfer bugs as such and asking for patches.
Fedora Core 2 is now maintained by the Fedora Legacy project for security updates only. If this problem is a security issue, please reopen and reassign to the Fedora Legacy product. If it is not a security issue and hasn't been resolved in the current FC3 updates or in the FC4 test release, reopen and change the version to match.
I think its still present. What about having that gnome-screenshot-thing wait 1-2 minutes before deleting the file?
Closing because this needs to be fixed upstream and it is not Fedora's sole responsibility. The suggestion in Comment #11 is terrible.