RetroShare

[Like Ra]

Aaaand crashed. Took ~14 hours 😊

The latest 0.6.6 appimage is not compatible with NAS containers, so have to wait until their Ubuntu repository is updated.

Sorry, looks like I jinxed it 😊 

I've been watching the memory usage like a hawk today. Even when Retroshare crashed I still had plenty of RAM to spare. The entire system usage is usually around 300mb to 500mb. The rest is automatically used by the OS as cache. What I have done is increase the size of the swap file. My PC has 32gb RAM and it will occasionally swap out a little under light usage. It seems to be the nature of Linux. Rather than mess with the kernel swappiness value, I've increased the size of the swap file on the Pi from the default 100mb to 2gb because I did notice it using some swap even when there was plenty of free RAM. Before that I did flush out the swap back to RAM and it had no ill effects on the system or Retroshare.

There do seem to be a number of issues aeady posted on the Retroshare github for the ARM platform, as well as for Debian. Some of them sound similar to the problem I'm seeing.

Anyway, I'll leave it running 24/7 and see what happens. If it does help I'll post my findings back here for others to find.

Extra swap space makes no difference. It doesn't use it and still doesn't use more than around 500mb of RAM for the entire system.

Recently I've noticed a few warnings from Tor in the system journal. It's difficult to get a concrete answer on whether it's a bug in Tor or if it's a network or Retroshare issue causing Tor to complain. If it is Tor then it's entirely possible it could cause Retroshare to fail. I would have hoped it could cope with network problems but who knows.
The general answer I keep getting is simply to restart Tor.

I also managed to crash Retroshare by clicking on a part of the GUI. On github there are reports of similar and previous bugs in the GUI causing crashes. If I recall correctly, one such crash they fixed in an earlier version was caused by clicking quickly between two buttons.

I guess it's basically just put up with it all. I might look in to automating restarting Tor and Retroshare if Retroshare crashes or Tor floods the journal with warnings. Or I might look at a different OS with a newer version of Tor for the Pi.

If this sounds like a lot of complaining I'm sorry. I'm just new to the program and didn't know if this was how things are and all part of the territory or not.
In light of all this, for now I'll keep an eye on it and just restart it if it crashes. Sorry if anyone is trying to download anything from or through me when it crashes. I'll do my best to keep it up and running and add more certs as and when I can.

Long term I'll probably look in to using a different OS with a newer version of Tor. It's finding the right combination of what works on a RPi and also has an ARM build of Retroshare available for it.

@Like Ra indeed, but since the ones not having accepted you are shown in the journal, I thought that when someone adds you, it would be there too, or at least a kind of notification... And, as you said « check the log », I understood « check the journal », not the trousseau with keys of friends...


The interface is quite confusing in fact. I believe it’s better to sign the key of other and what’s the purpose of trust level?. It seem there are kind of forum and chains but what’s the difference? I think I should read the documentation deeper...

[Like Ra]

Im using the new cert format, you might want to update your retroshare

Still not available for Ubuntu 😟

Available now! Feels "snappier" and takes less memory!

Still up, and still uses 4GB res memory! It's clearly a huge step forward! Not sure if it's related to the new 0.6.6, but last time I'm connected to 50+ peers, what is a record.

Can anyone help me please? I have 97 persons in retroshare, and a green light next to "tor outgoing ok", but I don't think I'm connected properly, or I don't know how to check if I am.

I don't know how to import the retroshare URLS, so I don't know how to test if I'm connected.

I see some activity in DHT, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next - I really need to know how to use the URLs that people are posting, I think...

[Like Ra]

I don't know how to import the retroshare URLS

Just search for files in Files -> Search

I just thought I'd give people an update on how I'm getting on with Retroshare on a Pi.
I got tired of it crashing so frequently so I've installed it on my desktop PC running the Linux distro openSUSE Tumbleweed.
On the Pi I'd be very lucky to get 24 hours without a crash. The final straw was when it went through a series of crashes. I'd open Retroshare, enter my password and it'd crash within 30 seconds to 1 min max.
I will try and keep it connected for as long as I can, bearing in mind with it being on a desktop running a rolling release distro I will need to reboot more frequently than the Pi to update the OS etc, but that inconvenience is offset by it not crashing.

I don't know what's causing the ARM version to crash so much. I would have liked to test a different, more up to date, distro on the Pi to see if it's a bug or quirk in a library provided by Raspberry Pi OS. Unfortunately, finding a distro which I could easily install on a Pi400 and which had an ARM version of Retroshare available proved challenging. Building it myself is beyond my knowledge and capabilities.
I tried both the stable and unstable build on the Pi and both crashed.

Sorry if this is not the right thread, I tried searching, but I've seen links like "/r/1qjuewe3g" online and don't know what to do with them. Are they related to retroshare?  🤔

Sorry if this is not the right thread, I tried searching, but I've seen links like /r/1qjuewe3g" online and don't know what to do with them. Are they related to retroshare?  🤔

It's the latter part of a link for a "room" on a file sharing site https://volafile.org
You complete the address by adding on the /r/1qjuewe3g to get the full address. They're time limited though. I think they're only active for 2 days. After that whatever is in it is gone.