[Aptitude-devel] Bug#438495: Cannot interrupt changelog download

[josh at freedesktop.org]

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 08:33:57PM +0100, Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
> 2007-08-17 13:28 Trent W. Buck:
> >Package: aptitude
> >Version: 0.4.6.1-1
> >Severity: wishlist
> >
> >When viewing upgradable packages, one can use the `C' key (that is,
> >Shift + C) to download and view the changelog.  While the changelog is
> >downloading, both `q' and ^C (Control + C) terminate aptitude
> >altogether; it seems there is no way to cancel the download of a
> >changelog.
> 
> 2008-01-13 09:07 Josh Triplett:
> ># Automatically generated email from bts, devscripts version 2.10.13
> ># A real bug, not just a feature request; cannot do other operations while changelog attempts to download
> >severity 438495 normal
> 
> Can you please confirm me if what you observed is still happening with
> recent versions?  I's been quite a long time since the report and the
> follow-up.
> 
> I am on a very slooooow connection, but even then the (and when
> changelog is not on disk already) package changelog downloads so fast
> that I cannot press 'q' before it downloads, except in a couple of
> occasions.  Even with old packages (== assuming big changelog files) it
> takes fractions of a second.

Usually it's more of a connectivity issue; it doesn't take long to
download once it starts, but occasionally I've had it take a long time
to *start* getting data over the connection.  Latency, perhaps.

> Sometimes when pressing 'q', it seems to want to quit aptitude rather
> than cancel the changelog (but there is the confirmation dialog).
> However, assuming that in your case it's just very slow downloading the
> changelog, I think that one can press F6 and cycle to another view and
> continuing working there for a few seconds, as a workaround.
> 
> To be honest, I am not sure if it's even a good idea to implement this
> request, since I think the download happens in a background thread and
> only creates the view (the one reacting to 'q') once the changelog is
> ready.  So it's not a matter of simply connecting the 'q' event with
> cancelling the download; perhaps it needs shuffling some code around and
> creating new menus or keystrokes, that then need new messages and
> translations and documentation, and I am not sure if the problem is so
> inconvenient as to be worthwile?
> 
> But maybe I am missing your use-case and why it's so annoying, please
> explain.

What made it annoying is that while the changelog downloads, aptitude
blocks many other operations, just as it blocked operations while
downloading packages ("You may not modify the state of any package while
a download is underway.")

However, I can't seem to reproduce *that* part of the problem anymore.
Has aptitude changed to allow background downloads of changelogs without
blocking package state changes?  If so, then I think that brings this
bug back to wishlist at most.

- Josh Triplett