0xDECAFBAD - Tag: laconica

using Twitterrific with identi.ca

2008-07-18T21:56:18+00:00

Since identi.ca has introduced support for the Twitter API, switching Twitterrific over seems to be as easy as entering this command in a Terminal window:

defaults write com.iconfactory.Twitterrific baseUrl -string 'identi.ca/api'

The command to switch back is the following:

defaults write com.iconfactory.Twitterrific baseUrl -string 'twitter.com'

You'll also need to restart Twitterrific after each of these to see the change working.

It took me awhile to figure this out, because I didn't realize that they'd hidden the details in plain sight. You know, like, in the README file that comes with the Twitterrific download. Sheesh. Who reads those?

Archived Comments

Michael C. Harris
2008-07-19T01:25:32

I still follow people on Twitter using Twitterrific. If I could just get updates from multiple sources, I'd be happy.
Zach Copley
2008-07-19T07:45:45

I found it useful to go to the configuration menu (click the wrench) and turn OFF:

Tweets -> Include your direct messages System -> Show errors in tweet list

So Twitterrific wont complain in the list about the features that aren't implemented yet. After that, it works beautifully for me with identi.ca/Laconica.
Chris Messina
2008-07-19T13:29:34

Any idea how to under the stored username/password? Since I actually use a different password for each site, switching the baseUrl is only a start -- how do I switch account credentials?
l.m.orchard
2008-07-19T16:03:30

@chris: The login credentials, alas, aren't as easily switchable I don't think. The API baseUrl is an app-level default, but the user/pass is part of the app preferences.

Hmm... I haven't tried it, but I suppose you might be able to swap between copies of ~/Library/Preferences/com.iconfactory.Twitterrific.plist with each configured using a different user/pass pair.
Dan York
2008-07-22T18:39:22

Very cool! And nice to see. Out of curiousity, will this also work with Twitterific on the iPhone?
Evan Prodromou
2008-07-23T20:55:43

So, does this work with iPhone Twitterrific?
TeacherPatti
2008-07-24T22:49:42

Hey Les! Nice meeting you at the A2B3 today! Holy shit--you weren't kidding when you said you were into social networking sites :) Patti PS: I friended you on Flickr, so if you see TeacherPatti, that's me!
Mike
2008-07-27T19:16:14

Evan: No, probably not. There's no terminal on the iPhone.
Nicolas Ritoux
2008-09-02T18:27:18

Thank you so much!!! This is so simple and efficient. I was missing that smooth client interface with identi.ca. Now I can permanently switch over to identi.ca.

Niko - identi.ca user nikolai35
dan.diemer@gmail.com
2008-09-23T08:50:58

not working now =( Twitteriffic just hangs

Queue everything and delight everyone

2008-07-04T19:17:18+00:00

This is a blog post I've had simmering in my brainmeats for well over a year or two. I'm suddenly inspired to break blog-radio-silence and get it out of my head.

From Let the microblogs bloom - RussellBeattie.com:

Once this is widely accepted (and I'm sure there are many that would argue with me), the thing that will separate these types of services won't be whether they stay up (ala Twitter), but how fast your subscription messages are updated. Some services might be smaller or offer more features but not update as quickly whereas others will pride themselves on being as close to real-time as possible. The key is that it's all about messaging, not publishing. (Oh, and this also facilitates federation as well, but that's another topic).

One of the problems it seems most modern web apps face is the tendency to want to do everything all at once, and all in the same code that responds directly to a user. Because, while you're in there building a user interface, it's easy to implement everything else that needs to happen in that same UI module or library.

Someone wants to post a bookmark? Someone wants to post a message? Well, of course you want the system to cross-reference and deliver that new piece of User Generated Content through every permutation of tag, recipient, keyword, and notification channel supported by your system.

But, do you really have to do everything all at once—while the person who generated that content is tapping his or her foot, waiting for the web interface to respond with feedback? Are all of these things immediately vital to the person watching the browser spin, right now?

No. Your user wants to get on with things. He or she wants to see the submitted content get accepted and, as feedback and confirmation, see it reflected in a personal view immediately. Does it matter—to this person, at this moment—whether it shows up simultaneously in a friend's inbox, the public timeline, a global tag page, or even an RSS or Atom feed?

Again, no, simultaneity doesn't really matter—because no human beings actually appreciate it. Instead, imagine a ripple effect of concentric social and attention contexts with associated people spreading out from the original submission. (This probably rates the creation of a diagram someday.)

To make the person who's submitting something happy, offer feedback visible in their own personal context in under 50-200 milliseconds. (That is, less than half-a-second at worst, in people terms.)
The next person to delight is someone following the first person's published content—and humanly speaking, delays of tens of thousands of milliseconds can be acceptable here. (That is, 1-10 seconds at worst, in people terms.)
Finally, you can start worrying about strangers, allowing the content to propagate to tag pages, keyword tracking pages, and other public views—and I'd assert that delays of hundreds of thousands of milliseconds are acceptable here. (That is, 1-2 minutes at worst, in people terms.)

The idea here is that the social structure can help you scale, while still delighting people. Even with these delays, the system is still better at getting the word out than the original content creator would be at notifying all the others involved with an out-of-band system like IM or email. And that's at worst—on most good days, all the delays should tend to be on the order of seconds or less.

And how do you do all of this? Use queues. Sure, the original submission of content can and should be done all at once—just enough to get the content into the user's collection. Then, queue a job for further processing and get out of the way. In fact, just queue one job from the user interface—the processor of that queue can then queue further jobs for all the other individual processing tasks that are likely susceptible to plenty of parallel processing and horizontal scaling.

Meanwhile, the original user creating content has been thanked for their submission and life goes on. In fact, their life may include going on to submit many more pieces of content in rapid succession, thanks to your delightfully responsive web user interface.

And, in the end, that's really the purpose of a web-based content creation interface—accepting something as quickly as possible to make the user happy enough to continue submitting more. The other part of the user interface, retrieval, serves simply to get the original content distributed as fast as can be reasonably expected.

Now, preparing for fast retrieval is another story. The flip side to processing queues are message inboxes—expect content duplicated everywhere and fetched simply, rather than using cleverly expressed SQL joins that bring a system to its knees. But, that's another post altogether. :)

Archived Comments

shyam
2008-07-04T21:12:46

Interesting bits of conversation happening all over the place regarding queues and the irony of it all - the much maligned Java has had workqueues since the early days.

What everyone will learn, rather painfully in in cases like Twitter, is that all data is not created, consumed or processed equally. If you write your system which treats data equally you'll wind up with many Twitters all over the place.
l.m.orchard
2008-07-04T21:37:30

Oh, definitely. Work queues are not a new thing at all. It's just that I think there're a lot of modern web app builders who skipped Java "enterprise" software—skipped, or hoped to run away—and are rediscovering the whole set of problems. Maybe the solutions will be less over-engineered this time.
Mike Warot
2008-07-04T21:40:15

The thing that drives me nuts about twitter is that the core data rate is only about 30k/second... yet it kept going down. It's easy to spit out a broadcast to a subnet and never even miss a packet if there are only 100 of them per second or so. There's no reason on god's green earth that twitter should be anywhere near overloaded.

Bad architecture, on the other hand, is the work of Satan. ;-)
Simon Willison
2008-07-04T21:40:39

Thank you! I've been trying to put my thumb on why queues are so interesting for months; this expresses it perfectly.
Gabe Wachob
2008-07-04T22:54:10

Usually I would have something serious to say in agreement with you, because I do so much agree with you.

But I have just one comment:

DUH!!!
Don Park
2008-07-06T05:16:32

Good suggestions. For social services like Twitter, I would also add one more item:

Prioritize by Relationship

For example, two-way Twitter relationships (mutual-follow or recent @ or direct message exchange) should be refreshed before one-way. One can go further by placing higher priority on users whom poster sent messages to or received from within past X-hours.
alexis
2008-07-10T12:35:25

er... eventually consistent social graphs anyone?
Robert Schultz
2008-07-10T13:36:22

I agree with everything you've said. Especially the last part, duplicating data in the format it will be retrieved in rather than using complicated and CPU intensive SQL queries. This is especially true for any sort of statistics or reporting. I learned this by seeing my website's statistics growing slower and slower to retrieve as more and more traffic caused the database to become larger and larger and all of a sudden those queries that ran nearly instantly, even with good indexing were taking several seconds to return.
citric
2008-07-10T21:49:19

Web apps doing things while the user waits unnecessarily is an old phenomenon. I think it's often a matter of developers not wanting to (and/or being politically unable to) venture into what they consider the sysadmin's domain. Take the way-too-common case of apps that make the client wait while it does housekeeping. Why isn't this in a cron job? One reason is maybe this is KewlOSSBlogWikiPackage and it's simpler to say "just untar the package under htdocs and you're done" instead of saying "also, unpack these scripts in a non-servable area and set them up to run hourly, but not all at the same time; stagger them a little. And run them with the same UID your web server is running as". But we end up with a lot of apps that (badly) reimplement basic tools their OS ships with in the first place.
Bill Seitz
2008-07-28T21:23:06

I wonder if you're still setting the bar too high for low-priority connections. I mean, microblogging isn't really messaging, and maybe isn't (shouldn't-be?) conversation.

So why wouldn't 10-15min be good enough?

What % of "messages" are read instantly after they hit an inbox?
Jay Yukes
2008-11-23T10:35:55

I had to solve a similar problem. Needed the fastest possible response, so had to rule out interacting with the Database directly from the web app. Used PHP message queue Dropr to defer all DB work. It is very fast, easily over 1000 messages/second
jmxz
2009-02-13T20:00:13

Wow those comments make me feel old. I remember when these java queues everyone's referring to reminded me of how I had a VAX dedicated to queuing and scheduling batch jobs for a Cray.
Chris Henry
2009-06-11T20:09:47

Handling load is probably one of the biggest problems facing websites today. Queueing is definitely the way to go, but like you said, sites need the type of architecture where it's easy to deploy services to different machines. Usually by the time the site is under load, it's too late...
maht
2010-05-04T14:50:05

I use Inotify as my queue messaging system

http://maht0x0r.blogspot.com/2009/06/serialising-multiple-writers-in-shell_20.html

Inotify can wait on MOVED_TO or CLOSE_WRITE events so that you can add them to the queue when the upload has finished.

It should also be noted that this is a mnethod of load balacing too. Instead of 1000 parallel thumbnails being produced all context switching away, you can determine how many processes get spawned, use the OS' resource managing features etc.

Why I'm playing with Laconica

2008-07-03T20:32:40+00:00

I just posted a quick writeup on Laconica installation. But, beyond the how, there's the why.

As I mentioned in that entry, I've started and neglected at least two attempts at building a distributed Twitter clone. That's mostly been a function of how busy I've been; how long I screwed around with making my own PHP framework; how far I wandered playing with the look and feel; how well Twitter was working; and how bored I got.

As for Laconica, I'm somewhat displeased with the state of the Laconica code and the installation process—and it certainly needs many more features. In other words, it's very itchy to me. But, the important things are:

It exists and it works.
Someone's actively hosting it.
Others are trying to install it.
Someone got off their ass and persisted long enough to get it to this point.

That's more than I can say for my own efforts—because mere ideas are worthless—so maybe I can find a way to help. :)

Archived Comments

Dave Cridland
2008-07-04T09:15:24

One thing that would be interesting would be to write a new implementation of the same "OpenMicroBlogging" spec, or indeed take an existing microblogging project you prefer the look of, and add the support in there. It might even be less work that way, and it'd certainly be a valuable contribution.
Mi
2008-07-04T21:47:53

Yes, the installation is A Process .. I couldn't get it running, yet. But I like it the way it is. Where I live, the retarded ISP has blocked twittering services, twitter, plurk & etc... Thanks for your how-to it really helped.
Kai
2008-07-06T04:35:58

I tried and succeeded. Unfortunately I tried it before finding your how to. The only thing not working is the IM bot... but that's another point! Thanks for the writeup!
Pete Prodoehl
2008-07-08T15:53:41

Les, keep playing with Laconica! I think it could really benefit from your input.

Getting Laconica up and running

2008-07-03T19:21:35+00:00

Update, 30 Sep 2008:

You don't want to follow the directions on this page—instead, leave this page and read this:

http://laconi.ca/darcs/README

At one point, very early on in Laconica-time, this blog post offered useful information on getting Laconica up and running. But since then, my time has taken me away from playing with Laconica and thus this guide has fallen far behind. Hopefully soon I'll get back around to Laconica hacking, but not today.

I'm leaving the original text of this post here for posterity, but this is no longer current and following this guide will do more harm than good in confusing you about Laconica installation!

Again, to learn about getting Laconica up and running, leave this page and read this:

http://laconi.ca/darcs/README

The latest mini-sensations to arrive through my firehoses are identi.ca, a Twitter-clone / microblogging site, and the Open Source software Laconica, which powers the aforementioned site.

Having started and neglected two Twitter cloning attempts of my own, Cuckoo and OpenInterocitor, seeing someone else carry the torch with any modicum of momentum is attractive to me. So, I spent a little bit last night getting the code running on my own servers, and managed to do it twice:

See, the interesting thing promised by Laconica—and something I wanted in my own clones—is the ability to federate instances of the software. That is, users on one Laconica-based site should be able to subscribe to the updates from users on another site, by way of the OpenMicroblogging specification. Although federation isn't a silver bullet to a web-scale Twitter clone, I do think it's one of the most important bootstrap steps—but that's another blog post entirely.

Thus, since I'd like to see you run a Laconica site (or something like it) for mine to talk to, I figured I'd document how I got the thing running. My server is running Ubuntu Gutsy, so your mileage may vary. This is a long one, so check out the how-to after the jump...

Get the Laconica code

I got my copy of the code by using darcs, as described on the Laconica source page, like so:

sudo apt-get install darcs
darcs get --partial http://laconi.ca/darcs/

But, if you can't or don't want to use darcs right now, you can grab a Laconica tarball to get started.

Get modules and third-party prerequisites

I had already installed PHP and Apache, along with lighttpd, on my server. But, I found I needed a few more things. So, here's a slew of packages you may or may not already have:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cgi php5-cli php-pear php5-gd php5-mysql

Next, now that you've got PHP and PEAR, you can install some of the PEAR-based prerequisites:

sudo pear channel-update pear.php.net
sudo pear install channel://pear.php.net/Validate-0.8.1
sudo pear install DB_DataObject
sudo pear install Mail
sudo pear install Net_SMTP

After this, there are a few libraries that need to be downloaded by hand. For this, I created an extlib/ directory to keep them in, separate from Laconica's own lib/ which will be subject to updates to the software itself:

mkdir extlib xfers
cd xfers
curl -O http://openidenabled.com/files/php-openid/packages/php-openid-2.1.1.zip    
curl -O http://michelf.com/docs/projets/php-markdown-1.0.1m.zip
curl -O http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/OAuth.php
curl -O http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/files/xmpphp-0.1beta-r21.tar.gz
unzip php-markdown-1.0.1m.zip
cp 'PHP Markdown 1.0.1m/markdown.php' ../extlib/
unzip php-openid-2.1.1.zip
cp -r php-openid-2.1.1/Auth ../extlib/
cp OAuth.php ../extlib/
tar -zxf xmpphp-0.1beta-r21.tar.gz
cp xmpphp/*.php ../extlib/
cd ..
rm -rf xfers

Set up MySQL tables

I'll assume you already have MySQL installed. To set up a database for Laconica, I did the following:

mysql -uroot -p -e 'create database laconica';
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all privileges on laconica.* to laconica@localhost identified by 'PASSWORD'";
mysql -uroot -p laconica < db/laconica.sql

Configure Laconica

So far, I've found at least two config files that need tweaking—namely config.php and dataobject.ini.

The first thing I did to config.php was to add the following at around line 6 to account for my extlib/ directory:

#If you have downloaded libraries in random little places, you
#can add the paths here
define('INSTALLDIR', dirname(__FILE__));
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . INSTALLDIR . '/extlib');

The rest of the settings in config.php are somewhat self-explanatory. These are the ones I changed for my installation:

$config['site']['name'] = 'cafeonica';
$config['site']['server'] = 'decafbad.com';
$config['site']['path'] = 'laconica';
$config['site']['fancy'] = true;
$config['site']['theme'] = 'stoica';
$config['site']['email'] = 'l.m.orchard@pobox.com';
$config['site']['broughtby'] = '0xDECAFBAD';
$config['site']['broughtbyurl'] = 'http://decafbad.com/';
$config['db']['database'] = 'mysql://laconica:PASSWORD@localhost/laconica';
$config['db']['ini_laconica'] = $config['db']['schema_location'].'/stoica.ini';

After this, I tweaked the first few settings of dataobject.ini to the following:

database = mysql://laconica:PASSWORD@localhost/laconica 
schema_location = /www/decafbad.com/docs/laconica/classes 
class_location = /www/decafbad.com/docs/laconica/classes 
require_prefix = /www/decafbad.com/docs/laconica/classes/

Be sure to substitute your own web server paths and passwords in all the above. And finally, in order to allow the upload of avatar images, you'll need to tweak the permissions on the avatar/ directory, like so:

sudo chown -R www-data avatar
sudo chmod -R ug+rw avatar/

Configure Web Server

There isn't really much to configure if you're using Apache. There's a file htaccess.sample that needs to be copied to .htaccess—this will put in place all the mod_rewrite rules necessary to support "fancy" URLs.

On the other hand, if you're okay with uglier URLs with query parameters and whatnot, leave .htaccess alone and use $config['site']['fancy'] = false in your config.php.

For comparison, here are examples of non-fancy and fancy profile URLs:

http://decafbad.com/laconica/index.php?action=showstream&nickname=lmorchard
http://decafbad.com/laconica/lmorchard

One catch to the non-fancy and fancy thing, though—if you start off with non-fancy URLs and later switch to fancy, all of the profiles registered before that switch will appear with non-fancy URLs in the timeline. This is because the profile table stores the original URLs at registration in the profileurl column. You could change these if you like, but there be dragons.

Configure Lighttpd for "fancy" URLs (optional)

If you're like me, though, you're using something other than Apache for your main web server. Personally, I just got up and running with lighttpd not too long ago. Alas, that means the .htaccess rewrite rules won't work directly.

Admittedly, I am a novice to configuring lighttpd, so the following rules I added to my config could probably use some help:

url.rewrite-final += (
    "^/laconica/index.php(.*)$" => "$0",

    "^/laconica/$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=public",
    "^/laconica/rss$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=publicrss",
    "^/laconica/xrds$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=publicxrds",

    "^/laconica/doc/about$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=about",
    "^/laconica/doc/contact$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=contact",
    "^/laconica/doc/faq$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=faq",
    "^/laconica/doc/help$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=help",
    "^/laconica/doc/im$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=im",
    "^/laconica/doc/openid$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=openid",
    "^/laconica/doc/openmublog$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=openmublog",
    "^/laconica/doc/privacy$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=privacy",
    "^/laconica/doc/source$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=doc&title=source",

    "^/laconica/main/login$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=login",
    "^/laconica/main/logout$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=logout",
    "^/laconica/main/register$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=register",
    "^/laconica/main/openid(?:\?(.*)|$)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=openidlogin&$1",
    "^/laconica/main/remote(?:\?(.*)|$)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=remotesubscribe&$1",

    "^/laconica/main/subscribe$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=subscribe",
    "^/laconica/main/unsubscribe$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=unsubscribe",
    "^/laconica/main/confirmaddress$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=confirmaddress",
    "^/laconica/main/confirmaddress/(.*)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=confirmaddress&code=$1",
    "^/laconica/main/recoverpassword$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=recoverpassword",
    "^/laconica/main/recoverpassword/(.*)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=recoverpassword&code=$1",

    "^/laconica/settings/avatar$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=avatar",
    "^/laconica/settings/password$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=password",
    "^/laconica/settings/profile$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=profilesettings",
    "^/laconica/settings/openid$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=openidsettings",
    "^/laconica/settings/im$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=imsettings",

    "^/laconica/notice/new$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=newnotice",
    "^/laconica/notice/(\d+)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=shownotice&notice=$1",

    "^/laconica/user/(\d+)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=userbyid&id=$1",

    "^/laconica/(\w+)/subscriptions$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=subscriptions&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/subscribers$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=subscribers&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/xrds$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=xrds&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/rss$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=userrss&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/all$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=all&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/all/rss$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=allrss&nickname=$1",
    "^/laconica/(\w+)/foaf$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=foaf&nickname=$1",

    "^/laconica/(\w+)$" => "/laconica/index.php?action=showstream&nickname=$1"
)

That's it (for now)

And that's all I've got for you for now. At this point, it looks like my two Laconica installs are mostly working. I've not yet played with the XMPP bot, nor have I been able to see the OpenMicroblogging stuff working with remore subscriptions. However, I have been able to log in via OpenID, so that's something.

Archived Comments

Fabian Neumann
2008-07-03T22:36:12

Tried to remotely subscribe to you, but no success so far. Your laconica instance replied "Not expecting this response!" after what seemed like a successful oauth redirection :|
l.m.orchard
2008-07-03T23:27:14

Fabian: Unfortunately so far, that's been the thing I've seen between all Laconica instances I've seen—even identi.ca. Hopefully, it's something simple to work out
Igor
2008-07-04T11:56:43

Great!!! Thank you.
michael kamleitner
2008-07-04T18:11:56

yeah, great work man! you might add a note that php 5.2.1 is required for the function sys-get-temp-dir (though it's easy to add this function forolder php-installs, just see http://php.m-otion.at/manual/en/function.sys-get-temp-dir.php
Evan Prodromou
2008-07-04T18:55:33

Great! I'm so excited this is working. Question: can you help me with this bug: http://laconi.ca/PITS/00004 ? Also, maybe there's a bug in the finishremotesubscribe script? I've got a few people remote-subscribed in identi.ca, I'll find out what the problem was there.
Evan Prodromou
2008-07-04T18:57:19

Oh, also: you shouldn't have to update dataobject.ini!

And we need to set a mode for approved registration, for private instances... Wanna work on it?
l.m.orchard
2008-07-04T19:03:01

@Evan: Huh, I could've sworn things didn't work until I made those changes to dataobject.ini — I probably changed something else at the same time and though the dataobject.ini tweaks did it :)

I may also poke around at an INSTALL and maybe an approved reg mode too, after watching some fireworks and eating too much food...
Bill Deys
2008-07-04T19:20:58

Is there anyone out there that is helping people troubleshoot getting a site up and going. I'm having a hell of a time, but I'm betting it's an issue with my web server. I think the root of the problem is I don't have DB_DataObject in Pear. This has been a great help, just not smrt enough when things go off track! Thanks
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-04T19:33:50

I keep getting this error after following all your steps above.

DB_DataObject Error: Unable to load schema for database and table (turn debugging up to 5 for full error message)

Do you have any idea how I might fix this?

My installation is at http://www.georgology.com/laconica/

Thanks.
l.m.orchard
2008-07-04T20:22:27

@Andrew: Hmm... I just removed a chunk of the instructions about tweaking dataobject.ini — I just readded it. Evan says it doesn't need changing, but I swear that your error is the exact thing I resolved by modifying dataobject.ini

You may want to give it a try.
Eric
2008-07-04T21:57:34

Very, nice article, alot of help! Thanks
Nick
2008-07-04T22:19:40

Thanks for the guide, after a bit of trial and error, it works perfectly!
Kevin
2008-07-05T03:28:57

I'm getting the

"Warning: main(DB/DataObject.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/xxxx/public_html/blogging/lib/common.php on line 32"

what am I missing? Thx for any help, I'm sure is something I've over looked.
Andy C
2008-07-05T11:34:22

Thanks for the HOWTO which was really helpful. I am trying to install laconica on Bluehost.

However I get a DB connection error (CONNECT: Checking for database database_ in options'). This is strange because I can access the laconica schema using the same DSN using a small test PEAR script.

Is it possible to get laconica to dump the DSN so I can check it is correct ?
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-05T14:33:03

I have solved the error in my previous comment. "DB_DataObject Error: Unable to load schema for database and table (turn debugging up to 5 for full error message)" The solution was to rename the "classes/stoica.ini" file to "classes/.ini". This has solved the problem on two installations. Also remember to set debugging back to "0".

Kevin:

Its probably a PEAR dependency that is not installed.
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-05T14:38:03

Error in my last comment. It should be "classes/YOUR DATABASE NAME.ini" not "classes/.ini". Sorry
Andrew Bashore
2008-07-05T14:47:11

One more thing. I did not have to modify anything in "dataobject.ini"
Kevin
2008-07-05T15:05:38

Thanks Andrew, I thought that pear is loaded I'll double check and make sure.
Kevin
2008-07-05T16:50:58

PEAR is loaded, BUT I just noted that laconica requires PHP 5, and my box is running PHP 4.
WebGuy
2008-07-06T01:20:53

Followed all the steps and everything, things seems to be working fine, but when i try to add an IM i get this error -> Fatal error: Class 'XMPPHP_XMPP' not found in /var/www/lib/jabber.php on line 47. Any idea how to fix that ?

Thanks
Neal Locke
2008-07-06T04:22:13

Getting the following error message:

Warning: require_once(DB/DataObject.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/.matuxa/iraneal/opensourcefaith.org/lib/common.php on line 32

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'DB/DataObject.php' (includepath='.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/.matuxa/iraneal/opensourcefaith.org/lib/common.php on line 32

Looks similar to Kevin's but I know I have php5. I'm trying to install on shared hosting (dreamhost) at domain http://www.opensourcefaith.org/

Any suggestions?
Breyten
2008-07-06T13:51:02

@WebGuy, ln -s . XMPP && mv xmpp.php XMPP.php solved this issue for me. (Alternatively, you could mkdir instead)
Howard N
2008-07-07T00:05:24

Andy C did you have any luck resolving your issue with the PEAR error:

Checking for database database_ in options

I've slowly been working my way through getting laconia set up (thanks for the guide!) but have hit a wall with this error.
MRiGnS
2008-07-07T12:31:39

I got it set up but registration is not possbile, it displays this error:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class DBDataObjectCast could not be converted to string in /www/htdocs/test/lib/util.php on line 1001
Andy C
2008-07-07T17:39:57

HowardN - Yes.I discovered that my settings in 'config.php' (specifically [config][db]) weren't getting applied correctly so I modified the same settings 'lib/common.php' which worked. I know this shouldn't be needed and I know it's not correct but I'm just want to play with Laconica.
Andy C
2008-07-07T18:44:27

Remote sub from identi.ca to decafbad seems to be working now. Did you have to change anything on your end ? Are you on the latest Darcs code ? I am using the 0.4.1 tarball and get 'Not expecting this response'.
rid
2008-07-07T20:35:51

somewhat got something up using this guide at http://laconica.cabbitmedia.com/ but with a few bugs.

it's running on slackware 12.0.
Big Eclipse
2008-07-07T22:34:03

Page is blank. After following the steps and ensuring that everything is as it should be, the installation seem to have gone well. Not receiving any errors, but the page is just blank -- like an 'Untitled' page. Any ideas?
Don Park
2008-07-08T00:17:53

@webguy, according to evan, the tarball is out of date. get the subversion trunk with: svn co svn://netflint.net/xmpphp
martin english
2008-07-08T06:27:43

Neal_Locke: I'm attempting to install on dreamhost as well. I've spent a bit of time and found the following link - http://wiki.dreamhost.com/PEAR - which basically says PEAR on dreamhost is buggered. It does describe how to get a full installation of PEAR in your own domain, but it requries shell access which i can't get from work.

I'll post tomite with (any) results....
Lee
2008-07-08T20:26:10

Hey guys, I've got lacania almost working; when I go to register, I get the following error:

Catchable fatal error: Object of class DBDataObjectCast could not be converted to string in C:xampphtdocsmessaginglibutil.php on line 1001

I'm also a little bit weirded out that I am getting the web page, but when I go check out the database no tables have been created... is this right? When and what code will actually create the database tables?

Thanks so much for your help! - Lee
Dan Brickley
2008-07-10T09:06:30
I'm collected some Dreamhost-specific notes that build on this: http://laconi.ca/Main/LaconicaOnDreamhost including a fix for Neal's "Failed opening required 'DB/DataObject.php'" problem. Help welcomed if others have experience w/ DH.

In short re DataObject, see this bit:
1. Your lib/common.php MUST be changed to ensure PEAR files can be found.
Add (with appropriate changes):
```
# set up a non-root PEAR repo (before we need it)
$extra_path = array("/home/path-to-your-stuff/pear/php");
set_include_path(implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, $extra_path) . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());
```
...before this bit:
1. global configuration object
require_once('PEAR.php');

If it doesn't work, try replacing path-to-your-stuff with the path to your stuff.
Axel Beckert
2008-07-13T14:15:27

PHP Markdown is also available via PEAR:
pear channel-discover pear.michelf.com pear install michelf/markdown
raghav
2008-07-15T10:59:09

hey i am having trouble with my copy of laconica ......everything has been installed perfectly........but there are two troubles:- 1.there is not theme been shown on the laconica pages......its complete white 2.when clicked on home link nothing comes up ........please help cos i am newbie in coding after hours of working i installed it but of no use................... here is the link
raghav
2008-07-15T11:00:16

sorry the link is this.........................

http://www.earnstop.com/raghav1211/laconica3/laconica/

http://www.earnstop.com/raghav1211/laconica3/laconica/
Herman
2008-07-17T10:22:14

Hi

I am trying to get a laconica install up on a box running RHEL 5.1, PHP 5.1.6 with Apache/2.2.3. However after completing all the steps recommended in your (very kewl) post above I run into the same brick wall as i did later when following the directions on http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3051

The error I keep getting is "Call to undefined method XMLWriter::fullEndElement()" in util.php on line 98.

Could there possibly be something that I am overlooking as I have on a previous install attempted to descend into the rabbit hole of "fixing" the laconica code which I am sure cannot be broken as so many other people have successfully deployed it?

Thanks
Eric_A
2008-07-17T16:18:50

Use the latest release of XMPP if you are getting XMPP errors with the latest version of laconica
raghav
2008-07-18T06:34:31

i solved my earlier problem of theme but now another problem is emerging that of configuring xmpphp.......can anyone explain it in detail how to install cos many people are not able to activate xmpphp in their laconica apps..........if i get the solution myself i would post it here............
Herman
2008-07-18T15:12:49

Hey,

So the problem with my the error mentioned in my previous post was that when PHP was compiled for the server in question the XmlWriter/Reader components were disabled. After re-compiling PHP on this server etc the error went away.

Now the error is the inability to connect to the MySQL server? This with the relevant connection string entries being made in config.php & dataobject.ini? These settings are definately correct as I am able to connect to the database from the command line copying and pasting the entries from these files.

However it seems like access is trying to be gained on a "strange" port? Is there some specific place where this has to be configured? The error I am getting boils down to this: "nativecode=Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket"

Any input regarding this problem would be greatly appreciated!
Herman
2008-07-18T15:14:36
Nick
2008-07-23T08:41:39

Just to note for more recent install 0.4.4 and onwards you need XMP-PHP at least 0.1-r50 or up. Available here.
Herman
2008-07-23T10:37:32

All the issues I experienced ended up being server related. After sorting my server out the laconica install went like a dream.
tagnu
2008-07-23T21:39:20

Hi,

Please merge the comments 15,16 regarding "DB_DataObject Error"

It may confuse first timers.

Wonderful post!!
sasi
2008-07-26T06:37:48

Thanks for your post, i was able to install laconica (after much pain - mainly due to server issues) But when i do a notice, i get this message

Problem saving notice.

Did anyone had similar problem...
Brian
2008-07-27T17:05:15

I can't start the xmppdaemon. I'm stuck:

Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated 1217178205 [INFO]: Connecting to tcp://xxxx.com:5222 1217178205 [VERBOSE]: SENT: 1217178205 [VERBOSE]: RECV:
Alex Bellinger
2008-07-28T23:32:19
I've installed Laconica using the excellent instructions above, but am getting a couple of odd responses as follows:
- on logging out and after submitting a 'dent', laconica returns a blank page
- when I turn debut to 5 I see I get the following errors: DB_DataObject: ERROR: No Data return from get [and then userid or hash]
- error_log files are returning "Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/share/pear/DB/DataObject.php:4006) in ... /util.php on line 876
Any ideas what I need to tweak in order to correct these errors?
Edward
2008-07-31T19:11:10

I'm getting problems installing Laconica.

"Fatal error: Call to undefined method XMLWriter::fullEndElement() in /var/www/html/vbtwitter/lib/util.php on line 98"

I have XMLWriter installed though - PHPInfo shows that it's enabled. Any ideas?
SaigonNezumi (Kevin)
2008-08-07T15:14:27

Great guide. I am working on this project with my high school students here in Vietnam. They want to see if they can do a start-up company with this application marketed at students. Great guide.
IT_V
2008-08-10T10:02:08

Warning: require_once(markdown.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'markdown.php' (includepath='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/darcs/extlib') in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122

WHo can help me huhuh.. i got this problem ...
IT_V
2008-08-10T10:02:54

Warning: require_once(markdown.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'markdown.php' (includepath='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/darcs/extlib') in /var/www/darcs/lib/common.php on line 122
IT_V
2008-08-10T10:53:58

ok i almost done but i got problem again .... when i click on the login it gave me blank page ... and when i click on openID i gave me this error

Warning: require_once(Auth/OpenID.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /var/www/darcs/lib/openid.php on line 24

Fatal error: requireonce() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'Auth/OpenID.php' (includepath='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear:/var/www/darcs/extlib') in /var/www/darcs/lib/openid.php on line 24

anyone can help me fix that ... thanks alot
Durbin
2008-08-17T20:38:33

To everyone who is getting XMLWriter problems, My guess is its because there are XMLWriter functions like fullEndElement() that were added or modified from php5.1.6 to php5.2.5. Unfortunately centos and redhat don't support php past 5.1.6 so i've been searching for a hack that allows 5.2.5 on centos of redhat, found a couple but haven't got them to work.
Durbin
2008-08-17T23:37:05

found a solution for the "Call to undefined method XMLWriter::fullEndElement()" problems. It is due to the fact that these functions aren't included in older versions of php, see here. http://us2.php.net/manual/en/migration52.functions.php

but here is a great wiki on upgrading to php5.2.x on centos or redhat

http://www.atomicorp.com/wiki/index.php/PHP

once I upgraded everything worked properly.
Leo Laporte
2008-08-22T05:12:47

Excellent and very useful instructions. We're up and running. I'd love to get XMPP and XRDS running, but all in good time! Thanks so much!
Adam Sjøgren
2008-08-24T19:20:37

I can log in to identi.ca with my OpenID, but neither to your laconica instance on decafbad.com or Leo Laportes on army.twit.tv - my guess is that you don't allow OpenID Provider endpoints with self-signed SSL-certificates - do you know what identi.ca has set up differently, since they seem to allow self-signed certs?
Marco
2008-08-29T12:19:25

Hi, I cannot install PEAR or other dependencies and I tried install laconica3, is a development tarball based on 0.4.3, but I received following error: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected TSTRING in /home/web/publichtml/laconica/lib/util.php on line 468. Could you help me? Thanks
Friedrich Zohmann
2008-09-04T15:35:35

I installed Laconia using this manual and its working fine, but I dont know how to get it federated. Can you please tell me, where to find info on that.

thanks, Friedrich
Håkan Eriksson
2008-09-14T22:35:00

I have Laconica 0.5.0 up and running at the adress: http://www.korvmedbrod.com

I have this installed on Dreamhost PS I have trouble to get XMPP daemon to work, I only get error mess when i use $ ./scripts/startdaemon.sh . Like this: Starting xmppdaemon.php... Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /my_laconica_path/lib/util.php on line 543 DONE.

I have switched over to PHP5 in the DH panel, can anybody help me, please!
Webcubes
2008-09-15T09:23:59

Hello, I have a laconica installation and it works well except for the IM and mail stuff. When I run xmppdaemon.php, I get the daemon working and can post notices, but the daemon dtops working and the jabber(update@domain.com) get signed off. I get the following error while I run xmppdaemon on a PHP5 linux box.

Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/PEAR.php:563) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/PEAR.php:566) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically (/home/adelphus/public_html/blog/lib/common.php:93) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/Mail.php:154) Unknown error type: [8] Undefined offset: 3 (/home/adelphus/public_html/blog/lib/jabber.php:57) Unknown error type: [8] Use of undefined constant CLAIM_TIMEOUT - assumed 'CLAIM_TIMEOUT' (/home/adelphus/public_html/blog/xmppdaemon.php:341) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:4101) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::getStaticProperty() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2236) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method DB::connect() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2241) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method DB::parseDSN() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB.php:520) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/common.php:1017) Unknown error type: [2048] Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/common.php:1220) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method DB::isError() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB.php:557) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::isError() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2260) Unknown error type: [2048] is_a(): Deprecated. Please use the instanceof operator (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/PEAR.php:275) Unknown error type: [2048] Non-static method PEAR::isError() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context (/home/adelphus/public_html/pear/DB/DataObject.php:2132) ...........

Can anyone help me with this issue?

Thanks, Webcubes
ta
2008-09-19T00:14:12

Hi,

It would be great if somebody can help me on this:

XML Parsing Error: no element found Location: http://localhost/laconica/index.php?action=public Line Number 1, Column 1:

Thanks
Raseel
2008-09-27T21:37:58

How do you fix the following error : "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /my_laconica_path/lib/util.php on line 532"

Its in the function common_set_user()/