Bug 182608 – net-proxy/wwwoffle-2.9b prone to incomplete fetches, particularly of small gif images

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Rick Hewett 2007-06-19 20:31:23 UTC]

net-proxy/wwwoffle-2.9b seems to truncate small gif image files at times.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set a web browser to use wwwoffle, and try to retrieve a small gif image (1 or 2KB in size)
2. Repeatedly shift-reload the image.
3. Observe that from time to time the image is displayed in a truncated form. The image properties will show the file is smaller than it should be.

Actual Results:  
Image properties as displayed by Firefox for a bad retrieval:

Location: http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/chockyweb_sm_t.gif
Width: 260px
Height: 55px
Size of File: 1.15kB (1182 bytes)

Expected Results:  
Image properties as displayed by Firefox for a good retrieval:

Location: http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/chockyweb_sm_t.gif
Width: 260px
Height: 55px
Size of File: 1.37kB (1401 bytes)

Behaviour is intermittent but frequent, and particularly affects the kinds of decorative images often used on BBs like phpBB. The Gentoo forums demonstrate the problem quite well for me. net-proxy/wwwoffle-2.9a didn't seem to be quite so prone to the problem, but might not have been immune...

# emerge -pDv wwwoffle

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R   ] net-proxy/wwwoffle-2.9b  USE="zlib -gnutls -ipv6" 0 kB 

Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 kB

# emerge --info
Portage 2.1.2.7 (default-linux/x86/2007.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r3, 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686 AMD Sempron(tm) 2400+
Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9
Timestamp of tree: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:30:01 +0000
dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1-r3
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.17-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="distlocks fixpackages metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/"
LINGUAS="en_GB"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="3dnow acl apache2 berkdb bitmap-fonts cgi chroot cli cracklib crypt cups dri fortran gdbm gimp gpm gtk iconv isdnlog jpeg libg++ maildir mbox midi mmx mudflap mysql ncurses nls nptl nptlonly openmp pam pcre perl php png pppd python readline reflection session spl sse ssl suhosin tcpd tiff truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode x86 xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en_GB" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="vga"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[Comment 1 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2007-06-19 21:05:58 UTC]

Submit this upstream please. We don't apply any patches to this -> not a Gentoo bug.

http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/wwwoffle/#Feedback

[Comment 2 Rick Hewett 2007-06-19 21:29:44 UTC]

I suggest:

1) Mask net-proxy/wwwoffle-2.9b as being unstable on x86
2) Restore net-proxy/wwwoffle-2.9a to the portage tree

[Comment 3 Alin Năstac (RETIRED) 2007-06-24 09:53:52 UTC]

I tried to reproduce the bug, but I failed.
Things I did:
 1) started wwwoffled and wwwoffled-online service
 2) set my browser to use wwwoffle proxy (localhost:8080)
 3) retrieve http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/chockyweb_sm_t.gif
 4) run wwwoffle-rm http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/chockyweb_sm_t.gif
 5) shift-reload the image
 6) go to step 4

I repeated steps 4-5 several times, always with the same result (image loaded completely).

I found a patch for wwwoffle made by Paul Rombouts. The patch is available at http://www.phys.uu.nl/~rombouts/wwwoffle.html, but the cache will have to be emptied. Does this patch works for you?  

 

[Comment 4 Rick Hewett 2007-06-26 07:25:28 UTC]

One thing that does appear to have made a difference is changing the setting of "reply-chunked-data" in /etc/wwwoffle/wwwoffle.conf from "yes" to "no".

[Comment 5 Alin Năstac (RETIRED) 2007-06-29 05:57:25 UTC]

My config is the default one, in which "reply-chunked-data" is set to "yes". 
As I said, I can't reproduce it.

[Comment 6 Rick Hewett 2007-06-29 07:04:30 UTC]

...and, by turning "reply-chunked-data" in /etc/wwwoffle/wwwoffle.conf to "yes" I can reproduce it easily enough. I think there's a timing issue involved, because running wwwoffled in debug mode reduces the occurrences significantly.

As was pointed out above, this is not a Gentoo bug, but an upstream one. I have reported the problem (with evidence) upstream to the package's author.

For Gentoo, the appropriate action might be to make version 9a (which did work a bit better for me with "reply-chunked-data" set "yes") available again so that those who are affected have a down-grade option available.

[Comment 7 Alin Năstac (RETIRED) 2007-08-21 19:22:52 UTC]

Please check if the newly added version 2.9c solves your problem.
If not, attach the tarball of your /etc/wwwoffle.

[Comment 8 Alin Năstac (RETIRED) 2007-09-23 07:35:08 UTC]

Bug closed with NEEDINFO resolution.