Arch Linux

It also breaks mailspring, and element encrypted search. So I guess this is electron-related?

Filed this as an gtk issue: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/69990

Installing sqlcipher and running LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libsqlcipher.so signal-desktop seem to work around this issue (Thanks to Andreas Bosch on arch-general). Maybe the dependency sqlcipher and a modified desktop-file with LD_PRELOAD could be added to the signal-desktop package? It seems the whole "gtk3/tracker breaks sqlcipher"-thing is a bit bigger.

Why is Signal-desktop using a statically linked sqlcipher library in the first place?
The package is already patching away a statically linked openssl that caused issues.

The library in question is actually a dynamic library located at

/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/@journeyapps/sqlcipher/lib/binding/napi-v6-linux-x64/node_sqlite3.node

The use of node-pre-gyp suggests this might be a precompiled library, but on inspection it refers to GCC 10.2.0 and GLibC 2.33 so it's probably compiled by us.

Downgrading to gtk3-1:3.24.27-3 worked for me as a short-term workaround. Signal starts without data loss.

Issue of the signal-desktop project: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/4513

Unfortunately Bjoern Franke's method didn't work for me.
But downgrading to gtk3-1:3.24.27-3 as suggested by Hans Mueller did the trick.

It seems that in your case your database is unencrypted now, as kpcyrd also pointed out here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/4513#issuecomment-801147849

Is this really not fixed yet? I don’t have this problem anymore on my system without downgrading gtk3.

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/69990 was "fixed" by reverting the Tracker 3 support, but that is only temporary. This needs to be fixed in Signal or it's just going to break again when Tracker 3 support is re-enabled.

The relevant upstream bug reports are:

- https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/4513
- https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher/issues/385
- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/tracker/-/issues/289
- https://github.com/journeyapps/node-sqlcipher/issues/81

It's not a simple problem to solve unfortunately.

I've installed the latest signal-desktop (5.13.0-1) and it breaks for me in the same way:

Unhandled Promise Rejection: Error: SqliteError: file is not a database
at Database.pragma (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:648:31)
at getUserVersion (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:23949:15)
at migrateSchemaVersion (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:23969:25)
at openAndMigrateDatabase (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:24001:5)
at openAndSetUpSQLCipher (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:24017:16)
at Object.initialize (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:25563:14)
at MessagePort.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/ts/sql/mainWorker.bundle.js:28224:36)
at MessagePort.[nodejs.internal.kHybridDispatch] (internal/event_target.js:354:41)
at MessagePort.exports.emitMessage (internal/per_context/messageport.js:18:26)
at Worker.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar/ts/sql/main.js:33:29)
at Worker.emit (events.js:315:20)
at MessagePort.<anonymous> (internal/worker.js:207:53)
at MessagePort.[nodejs.internal.kHybridDispatch] (internal/event_target.js:354:41)
at MessagePort.exports.emitMessage (internal/per_context/messageport.js:18:26)

Packages: signal-desktop-5.13.0-1, gtk3-1:3.24.30-2

Steps to reproduce:
* Install the latest packages of Arch with signal-desktop installed, and run it without any data located in '~/.config/Signal'.

I tried downgrading gtk3 to various old versions I had lying around, and I tried running signal-desktop with LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libsqlcipher.so, but neither fixed the problem.

Have you considered that your database might be legitimately broken?

That is, restarting signal with the database wiped creates a new SQLCipher database and not an unencrypted one.

I recursively deleted the entire ~/.config/Signal directory. I have no database. Signal attempts to create a new one at initialization (during the openAndSetUpSQLCipher function), and then crashes when it subsequently attempts to migrate it later on during initialization. This is the file it creates and then immediately crashes on:

$ file ~/.config/Signal/sql/db.sqlite
$HOME/.config/Signal/sql/db.sqlite: data

Could you test if this is solved by signal-desktop 5.13.0-3?

That PKGBUILD didn't work for me, but I did find the following symbol lookup / undefined symbol error with strace on signal-desktop:

[pid 12657] 17:04:52 writev(2, [{iov_base="/bin/sh", iov_len=7}, {iov_base=":
", iov_len=2}, {iov_base="symbol lookup error", iov_len=19}, {iov_base=": ",
iov_len=2}, {iov_base="/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resource"..., iov_len=113},
{iov_base=": ", iov_len=2}, {iov_base="undefined symbol: _ZN2v86String1"...,
iov_len=81}, {iov_base="", iov_len=0}, {iov_base="", iov_len=0},
{iov_base="\n", iov_len=1}], 10/bin/sh: symbol lookup error:
/usr/lib/signal-desktop/resources/app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/better-sqlite3/build/Release/better_sqlite3.node:
undefined symbol:
_ZN2v86String11NewFromUtf8EPNS_7IsolateEPKcNS_13NewStringTypeEi

And I also see this line in the strace output as well, likely meaning the unencrypted version is being loaded when the better_sqlite3 version fails?:

[pid 12683] 17:04:56 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/lib/libsqlite3.so.0", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC <unfinished ...>

Definitely not solved by 5.13.0-3. I just tested it in a clean Arch install / docker image here: https://github.com/cronburg/signal-desktop-docker

I get the same error compiling from source with the Github repo instructions, so I'll open an issue there soon.

We've carried a patch by heftig for a while that has now been fully upstreamed starting with 5.24.0-1