Why does Vienna phone home even with auto update off?

[pan flash]

Hi
Firstly, thanks for the great open source RSS app for OS X that is Vienna.

Why does Vienna phone home to 216.34.181.96 [projects.sourceforge.net] even though I have auto update off?
I noticed this in the last version of Vienna too.

Thanks

[barijaona]

I noticed this in the last version of Vienna too.

Do you refer to the last beta available at Github.com or to the 2.6 version ?
Using the last beta and Wireshark, I noticed no network activity with the IP address you mentioned. Nowhere in the source code did I see something which could lead to such a behavior.

Might it be related to a plugin you are using ?

[pan flash]

No, the previous version was the stable release version 2.5. My current version is stable 2.6. I have no plugins installed, just plain old vanilla Vienna.

I notice the activity when (a) I am connected to the net and then (b) start Vienna.

It instantly connects to 216.34.181.96 over port 80 which is projects.sourceforge.net.

It also uses other addresses linked to source forge too like
216.34.181.60 = ch3.sourceforge.net

[pan flash]

Using Wireshark I managed to capture what is happening.
Firstly, it seems to do the phone home only once a day. So it doesn't happen every time I open Vienna.
So I changed the date on my mac and that 'fooled' Vienna into doing it again today.

To my non-developer eyes it would seem that despite having auto update switched off Vienna is still at least checking for updates.
The payload of the packets include references to "sparkle", which I think is some kind of an update platform, along with a request to this url http://vienna-rss.sourceforge.net/changelog.xml

I most definitely have "Check for new versions of Vienna on start up" deselected.
I also have "Check for new articles on start up" deselected too.
And I have "Check for new articles" set to "Manually".
So in no way should it be doing this.

Is this behavior a bug or deliberate? As I said I noticed it in the last version too.

[Edit: Sorry I forgot to say I'm on OS X 10.6.8 and Vienna Version 2.6.0.2601 ]

[barijaona]

It can be considered a bug.

I'll check if recent betas, built with a more recent version of Sparkle, have the same behavior.

[pan flash]

Ok , cheers.

[pan flash]

I have learned a little bit about how the Sparkle settings work. They are listed in the .plist for the app. which is located at ~/Library/Preferences/uk.co.opencommunity.vienna2.plist

Looking at that .plist there are a few 'keys' that relate to the Sparkle update feature

Code: Select all

<key>SUCheckAtStartup</key>
<false/>
<key>SUEnableAutomaticChecks</key>
<true/>
<key>SULastCheckTime</key>
<date>2012-08-29T12:04:47Z</date>

From my [limited] understand it would seem the bug is being caused by the following key being set to true

Code: Select all

<key>SUEnableAutomaticChecks</key>
<true/>

So would writing this command into terminal fix it

Code: Select all

defaults write uk.co.opencommunity.vienna2 SUEnableAutomaticChecks -bool false

Or perhaps even just loading up the uk.co.opencommunity.vienna2.plist in TextWrangler and manually changing the key to <false/> would do?

[pan flash]

That fixes it:

Code: Select all

defaults write uk.co.opencommunity.vienna2 SUEnableAutomaticChecks -bool false

It changed the key <key>SUEnableAutomaticChecks</key> to false and so far Vienna hasn't phoned home like it usually would

I am using regular stable release Vienna Version 2.6.0.2601.

If you want to change it back use the same command but instead of false at the end use true and your back to the way it was.

---------------------------------------

That command also works for other apps that use the Sparkle update framework but have 'issues'.
For example, X Quartz checks for updates automatically but doesn't have any GUI option to disable them. But but by using

Code: Select all

defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 SUEnableAutomaticChecks -bool false

you can stop it.

[barijaona]

Thanks for spotting this.

I discovered that for some reasons, Sparkle framework version 1.5 changed its binding from SUCheckAtStartup to SUEnableAutomaticChecks.
I will fix Vienna according to this.

[barijaona]

Can you confirm that the problem is fixed with the version 3.0b.2818 that I just uploaded ?

[pan flash]

Can I run the beta version along side the stable version or is it best to uninstall the stable version first?

[barijaona]

I cannot attest it with certainty, but as far as I remember, if you don't use the new features (essentially Google Reader sync), the two versions use the same database structure and preferences are the same.

For the sake of safety, just backup first ~/Library/Application Support/Vienna and ~/Library/Preferences/uk.co.opencommunity.vienna2.plist

[David Munch]

There's no problem in having to different versions of the application on your harddrive. The problem is when you run them, you'll be using the same preference files, which may ruin them due to code changes. No way to get around that, except either modifying the applications source code, or changing the preference files folder around, each time you switch between the two different versions.