Empathy 3.0.1 won't work in 'nearby' mode

[jtfolden]

I just started Empathy 3.0.1 up on a fresh install of F15 (with all updates) and I wanted to use it only for local network communication. I chose "I just want to see people online nearby for now" to do that as I normally would but Empathy never becomes "available" and the indicator just seems to spin forever.

I put SELinux into permissive mode and temporarily disabled the firewall to see if either one of those were effecting it and it made no difference.

In anyone else seeing this? I'm thinking that Avahi should be running at system start to support this but it doesn't look like F15 is running it at boot...

Thanks!

Originally Posted by jtfolden

I just started Empathy 3.0.1 up on a fresh install of F15 (with all updates) and I wanted to use it only for local network communication. I chose "I just want to see people online nearby for now" to do that as I normally would but Empathy never becomes "available" and the indicator just seems to spin forever.

I put SELinux into permissive mode and temporarily disabled the firewall to see if either one of those were effecting it and it made no difference.

In anyone else seeing this? I'm thinking that Avahi should be running at system start to support this but it doesn't look like F15 is running it at boot...

Thanks!

i get the same behavior in 3.0.0 an i have had that problem with 2.90.x versions, i just deleted it ( not Empathy ) but that 1 connection

[jtfolden]

Turns out this is a Fedora bug. Avahi-Daemon is installed by default but not enabled:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=647831

Not only does this issue effect nearby chatting for Empathy but it also prevents Vino (Remote Desktop) from announcing itself on the network and network printer discovery...

[bpepple]

Originally Posted by jtfolden

Turns out this is a Fedora bug. Avahi-Daemon is installed by default but not enabled:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=647831

Not only does this issue effect nearby chatting for Empathy but it also prevents Vino (Remote Desktop) from announcing itself on the network and network printer discovery...

Yes. Avahi needs to be running and the appropriate ports open (5353-UDP) for local-link XMPP in Empathy to work. Hopefully by F16 will have a solution worked out for having it enabled & adjusting the firewall appropriately.

[AdamW]

in addition to that bug report, it may be worth filing an enhancement request for Empathy to check whether there's actually a zeroconf daemon running, and warn if there isn't and you try to use 'nearby' mode.