Error message: "Delivery Issue: A message from X couldn't be delivered" when no messages were sent

[achristinek]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

• I am using Signal-Desktop as provided by the Signal team, not a 3rd-party package.

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• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• I have read https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/wiki/Submitting-useful-bug-reports
• This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic

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Bug Description

I and my colleagues keep getting messages "Delivery Issue: A message from X couldn't be sent." but when we check in with each other, we hadn't sent messages at all.

Steps to Reproduce

I'm sorry, I tried but couldn't reproduce the bug, as it doesn't seem to be connected with any messages I or my colleagues actually send...I hope the screenshots I took will have enough detail to start the investigation; apologies again...

Actual Result: Multiple Delivery Issue messages received on desktop (mac) only, every time I open the app after having shut off my laptop for a while before. I receive 99+ notifications, and several chats show multiple of these messages from different colleagues, when the reality is that no one had messaged at all.

Expected Result: No Delivery Issue message should appear if no one actually messaged.

Screenshots

Platform Info

Macbook Air M1 (MacOS Monterey v. 12.2.1)

Signal Version:
5.37.0
production (M1)

Operating System:
(MacOS Monterey v. 12.2.1)

Linked Device Version:
Android 5.32.14

Link to Debug Log

https://debuglogs.org/desktop/5.37.0/c7c90f95032abb4cba9fabeaedccf7b597c6599385774cb28dd84ffab49ae0e2.gz

In most cases, a log from your other devices is also useful:
Android: https://debuglogs.org/android/5.32.14/1089186844fef183b36ce2133a0a0fd137b41a977cf0471dab303252f1d4de82

[achristinek]

Hm I see the file titles didn't make it through. Please msg me if you need more intel on the comparisons, but essentially the dark background is from Android, the light background is from desktop mac.

[maticahacic]

I have same issues on Arch Linux and Android phone.

[indutny-signal]

@maticahacic could you include your debug logs from both phone and Desktop, please?

[maticahacic]

Absolutely. My bad.

Linux: https://debuglogs.org/desktop/5.37.0/469ed4c15e02b3c692c6a95336cd8119934bfb0d562b682e193129cc5eef55bb.gz

Android: https://debuglogs.org/android/5.34.5/dd1becdb124e6d8ead199307b54b2f4faa6ccb154ad2976b298e776a80e7deda

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[kmellerup]

I had the same problem in Signal Desktop (Kubuntu 20.04 Linux) today when I started a computer that has been off for more than two weeks. Maybe around 50 of those "A message to X couldn't be delivered"

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@kmellerup It is expected that you'll see some problems after having desktop offline for so long. But 50 errors is surprising. How many messages would you say that you send and receive per day?

[achristinek]

Hi all, Wanted to say that I'd get sometimes 90+ if the group chat I was in was particularly chatty (though it didn't necessarily correspond with the # of messages), and I'd have desktop on daily. One thing I tried that seems to have "fixed" the bug is that I uninstalled the desktop version from my work laptop. Previously, I'd had Signal on two laptops + my phone. After downsizing to one laptop and one phone, I stopped getting those messages. Perhaps try testing by having a single Signal account across a couple phones and a couple desktops - I think you'll probably end up seeing this bug. Hope that helps!

…

On Mon, 11 Jul 2022 at 18:02, Scott Nonnenberg ***@***.***> wrote: @kmellerup <https://github.com/kmellerup> It is expected that you'll see some problems after having desktop offline for so long. But 50 errors is surprising. How many messages would you say that you send and receive per day? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5849 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AYQGRVREOPNVA4XJHRN6WR3VTRHUBANCNFSM5SHYMGPQ> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@achristinek Believe me, I have lots of Signal Desktops linked. In fact, I often have five Signal Desktops linked to my account. I think the difference is that I don't leave any of them unopened for two weeks.

[achristinek]

Neither did I, but the issue kept happening.

…

On Mon, 11 Jul 2022, 18:24 Scott Nonnenberg, ***@***.***> wrote: @achristinek <https://github.com/achristinek> Believe me, I have lots of Signal Desktops linked. In fact, I often have five Signal Desktops linked to my account. I think the difference is that I don't leave any of them unopened for two weeks. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5849 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AYQGRVVJH3B47XIU453NLGLVTRKFXANCNFSM5SHYMGPQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@achristinek Well, next time it happens please provide a debug log from both the receiver and sender - we want to track these errors down!

[kmellerup]

@scottnonnenberg-signal Ok, understandable. Usually I do not have it off for that long and it didn't really bother me but since I found this issue and it seem to be the same I wanted to let you know.
How many messages... hmm, never really counted and it probably differ from day to day but between 10 and 100 maybe? Not sure if you mean overall Signal or just that particular chat group that the errors were in.

I took out a debuglog yesterday. Not sure if that would help.
https://file.io/17TmKYfzQzgb

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@kmellerup All of your errors are of type LibSignalError: missing sender key state for distribution ID [REDACTED] which means that you missed an earlier message from that device with the information necessary to decrypt that group message.

You got a lot of errors:

Errors by Sender - 7 total

| Key   | Value |
| ----- | ----- |
| f2e.1 | 107   |
| aed.1 | 51    |
| f0c.2 | 47    |
| aed.2 | 26    |
| ce4.1 | 7     |
| 123.1 | 6     |
| ea3.1 | 2     |

You can find these folks by searching with a special keyword for these users. For example, !uuidEndsWith:f2e to search for the first user you got a lot of errors from in that list.

The errors are actually expected because they are about two weeks old - the first message that resulted in an error had a timestamp of 2022-06-27T08:38:37.179Z, which is right about two weeks ago. You had Desktop offline for long enough that you started losing messages (anything over two weeks old), namely the messages that had the key material required for decrypting that message.

Finally, I'll say that these kinds of things do happen, and they often don't result in Delivery Issue items in the timeline - because Signal clients will request message retries in this case. 169 of your 246 errors were successfully retried, leaving 77 messages as Delivery Issue in your conversations. For those messages, the sending devices perhaps weren't online when they needed to be for the retry.