[packagekit] Strange behavior of Ubuntu's PackageKit (was: Run pkclient action from thread)

[Matthias Klumpp]

Hello!
I discovered a strange behavior of an application of mine which uses
PackageKit: The pkclient command (e.g. pk_client_search_files_async())
is executed, but PackageKit does not react, it sends no error message and
does not execute the job.
I tried this on Ubuntu 10.04 beta2, for which I received a bug report. I
was able to reproduce this bug on Ubuntu, but I also tried it on Fedora 12:
This behavior exists only on Ubuntu, on Fedora it does what it should do.
Now, there are the following option which part causes the bug:

 1) My application/lib (I don't know why this only happens with my app
(pkcon executes the tasks withou problems))
 2) PackageKit
 3) The packagekit apt/aptcc backend (I tried both backends)
 4) Apt itself

To fix this bug, I have to understand what happens exactly inside
PackageKit when the daemon receives the command. I executed packagekitd in
verbose mode, but I don't know where there might be a problem (e.g. what
means "1 have an unknown role (GetTid then nothing?)")
Could someone please say if there's something unusual in this output?
Thanks and kind regards
  Matthias Klumpp


-----------------------------
[packagekitd verbose output] 
--------------                                               
 - adding transaction 0x1a4d090, item 0x1a31e00                            
                                                       
TI:19:50:14     FI:pk-engine.c  FN:pk_engine_get_tid,293                   
                                                       
 - sending tid: '/183_dbcdddea_data'                                       
                                                       
TI:19:50:14     FI:pk-engine.c  FN:pk_engine_reset_timer,189               
                                                       
 - reset timer                                                             
                                                       
TI:19:50:14     FI:pk-transaction-db.c 
FN:pk_transaction_db_defer_write_job_count_cb,528                          
               
 - doing deferred write syncronous                                         
              
                  
TI:19:50:14     FI:pk-transaction.c     FN:pk_transaction_set_hints,4699   
                                                       
 - SetHints method called: locale=de_DE.UTF-8, background=false,
interactive=true                                                  
TI:19:50:14     FI:pk-transaction.c     FN:pk_transaction_set_hint,4678    
                                                       
 - unknown option: interactive with value true                             
                                                       
TI:19:50:16     FI:pk-transaction-list.c       
FN:pk_transaction_list_is_consistent,734                                   
       
 - checking consistency as length 1                                        
                                                       
TI:19:50:16     FI:pk-transaction-list.c       
FN:pk_transaction_list_print,702                                           
       
 - State:                                                                  
                                                       
0       unknown /183_dbcdddea_data      running[0] committed[0] finished[0]
background[0]                                                        
                                                                    
TI:19:50:16     FI:pk-transaction-list.c       
FN:pk_transaction_list_is_consistent,763                                   
       
 - 1 have an unknown role (GetTid then nothing?)                           
                                                       
TI:19:50:16     FI:pk-transaction-list.c       
FN:pk_transaction_list_is_consistent,767                                   
       
 - 1 have not been committed and may be pending auth                       
                                                       
TI:19:50:16     FI:pk-engine.c  FN:pk_engine_get_seconds_idle,750          
                                                       
 - engine idle zero as 1 transactions in progress                          
                                                       
TI:19:50:16     FI:pk-main.c    FN:pk_main_timeout_check_cb,139            
                                                       
 - idle is 0   
-------------