Bug 509760

Summary:	Update loop and notification spam after failed automatic Flatpak update breaks Discover and continuously interrupts user
Product:	[Applications] Discover	Reporter:	Yevhen Popok <xalt7x.service>
Component:	Updates	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	02kss1989, aleixpol, elijaharagonmorgan, g6pd8zr5k, kdedev, nate, travier
Priority:	HI
Version First Reported In:	6.4.5
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
See Also:	https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509645
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Video demonstation of the issue

Description Yevhen Popok 2025-09-21 21:11:48 UTC

Created attachment 185144 [details]
Video demonstation of the issue

SUMMARY
Few months ago Cisco started to block additional regions (see https://github.com/cisco/openh264/issues/3886)  and currently many Ukrainian users are not able to finish installation of the "org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264" package from Flathub. This also uncovered issue with the KDE Discover. If user have "Automatic updates" enabled, they might get nasty notification spam. For at least a minute, the computer becomes unusable until Discover crashes.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open /etc/hosts and block access to the "openh264" host
127.0.0.1   ciscobinary.openh264.org
2. Install Flathub package that depends on the "org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264"
flatpak install flathub com.obsproject.Studio
3. Notice that "org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264" wasn't installed due to the unreachable "openh264" host
4. Open Discover, go to Settings, open hamburger menu, select "Configure Updates...".
5. Set "Update software" to "Automatically", set "Update frequency" to "Daily"
6. Wait several minutes

OBSERVED RESULT
Automatic updates continuously tries to update/install "org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264" and fails. These actions are extremely frequent. Discover constantly steals focus to shows the error message, windows and notifications flash etc. Users can't easily stop this. They have to either wait until Discover crashes or hard reset computer.

EXPECTED RESULT
Discover shouldn't continuously retry to install the package and show the same error. There should be a single attempt like it happens when users tries to update manually.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: Fedora Kinoite 42/43
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.18.0
Qt Version: 6.9.2

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Fedora 43 KDE is going to enable "Automatic updates", so I expect that many users will have this issue.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-09-23 19:35:04 UTC

Sigh, what an unpleasant issue. :/

Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-09-24 21:06:49 UTC

*** Bug 508943 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2025-09-26 16:02:15 UTC

*** Bug 508975 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4 elijaharagonmorgan 2025-12-24 19:02:22 UTC

before i test this, what is the actual way to fix it? remove the hosts listing presumably.
and why would users have that line anyway and be installing a dependant project?

Comment 5 elijaharagonmorgan 2025-12-24 19:04:34 UTC

hmm. seems to have worked for me:




flatpak install flathub com.obsproject.Studio
Looking for matches…
Required runtime for com.obsproject.Studio/x86_64/stable (runtime/org.kde.Platform/x86_64/6.8) found in remote flathub
Do you want to install it? [Y/n]: 

Info: runtime org.kde.Platform branch 6.8 is end-of-life, with reason:
   We strongly recommend moving to the latest stable version of the Platform and SDK
Info: applications using this runtime:
   com.obsproject.Studio

com.obsproject.Studio permissions:
    ipc                  network      fallback-x11      pulseaudio
    wayland              x11          devices           file access [1]
    dbus access [2]

    [1] host, xdg-config/kdeglobals:ro, xdg-run/pipewire-0
    [2] com.canonical.AppMenu.Registrar, org.a11y.Bus,
        org.freedesktop.Flatpak, org.freedesktop.Notifications,
        org.kde.KGlobalSettings, org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher,
        org.kde.kconfig.notify, org.kde.kdeconnect


        ID                           Branch Op Remote  Download
 1. [✓] com.obsproject.Studio.Locale stable i  flathub   2.1 kB / 47.0 kB
 2. [✓] org.kde.Platform.Locale      6.8    i  flathub  18.8 kB / 409.7 MB
 3. [✓] org.kde.Platform             6.8    i  flathub 198.6 MB / 396.0 MB
 4. [✓] com.obsproject.Studio        stable i  flathub 205.6 MB / 212.3 MB

Installation complete.

Comment 6 TraceyC 2026-02-05 20:18:20 UTC

I've tested this recently, and don't see an update loop following the steps to reproduce. Is anyone still able to reproduce this?

Comment 7 Nate Graham 2026-02-05 20:54:45 UTC

The update loop is only seen by people in Russia, Belarus, and parts of Ukraine, which are (or Cisco believes to be) under US sanctions, and therefore barred by those sanctions from downloading Cisco's H.264 media codec.

The problem not not that this happens — it's an unavoidable geopolitical issue — but rather that Discover doesn't handle itself very well when it happens.

It's likely going to be difficult to reproduce the Discover issues in the future since IIRC apps are moving away from the runtime that includes this sanctionable software. But in principle the issues could happen again due to future geopolitical matters if Discover doesn't harden itself against them.