There were some issues over the past week with logins.
I migrated from storing JWTs in the app’s file system to using the iOS Keychain to store them. This prevents - mainly for users with jailbreaks - other applications being able to access tokens.
The issue was caused by the iOS Keychain not being updated whenever the JWT was changed. So, if you signed into an account that already had an existing but invalid JWT, it would have not removed and overwritten the old one. This is fixed now along with ensuring that Memmy operates fine with 0.19. (Version 1.1.4, still waiting on Apple to approve the App Store release).
Now, this isn’t for 99 percent of you, but yet it still needs to be said. I have said before and will continue to say: I am a single person (Sean has his own obligations) working on this right now. It has consumed a lot of time, and that is fine to me. However I also have life commitments.
I totally understand that if the app is not functioning that you are going to migrate - at least temporarily - to another app. That’s fine. I would do the same. What is not helpful is rude comments or store. You’re more than welcome to bring up issues or leave reviews on the store (I do get notified of them) but doing so with “doesn’t work, devs can’t even be bothered to….” provides me with absolutely nothing to work off of.
This issue is a perfect example of that. There have been a handful of people who were unable to sign in for a few days now (more than I know of, I am sure). Of those people, a number either made comments here (and I do apologize for not reading those, please read below) or have left negative reviews without information. I was left to speculate about the issue and assume it was fixed and the user was just using an old version. It was not until today that someone reached out to me over email with details about the issue that I was able to pin it down and fix it.
I am extremely grateful for the people who have either created GitHub issues or emailed me directly with logs and information. I’ve had interactions with a number of you over the past few weeks that have been great, and that is what open source software is all about.
It should be noted too that - as of right now - this community is mainly used for me being able to make an announcement easily. I do not have the time to monitor this community however. If you directly reply to me or message me I’ll get the notification, but I do not pay attention to posts. If you have a question, it is much more helpful to send me an email (along with the debug log) or open an issue on GitHub.
Know that this isn’t just a request for myself. I’m asking you to treat every developer working on Lemmy. related projects, or frankly any open source software with the same respect. I’ve seen numerous times on this site (and frankly this was something that made me want to take a step away for a moment) rude remarks and negativity made towards developers. It isn’t constructive at all and is the opposite of the energy that we as a community should be putting out.
Please, all I ask is that we be respectful in both directions. As long as the community continues to be great I have no issue at all putting time into this. And outside of just myself and Memmy, the only way this community will continue to thrive and grow is if everyone is treated with that respect.
Remember, too, that Lemmy in terms of size and Memmy in terms of existence have only been around for mere months. Nothing comes perfect out of the box. Lemmy is still - I think we can agree - in its early stages. So is Memmy and the rest of the applications out there. What should be remembered is that the next wave of people is bound to come at some point. Your help in development can make that transition easier than it was for you, whether it be help toward me, toward Voyager or Avelon or the other available options, to the instances, or to the Lemmy devs themselves.
Thank you all. Long live Lemmy 💪(fuck /u/spez)
Another word on a more upbeat topic.
First, I have a Giphy implementation in the works to add to Memmy. In terms of privacy, I have taken steps to mitigate tracking that comes along with the use of a Meta product while also helping to allow users to communicate with more than just text.
Giphy has a SDK already made for React Native. Unfortunately, it has some “analytics” wrapped in. The API itself can be used without those analytics, but that comes at the cost of the almost certain tracking they do with just the searches and your IP.
As a result, this is what I came up with:
- You submit a search for a GIF (think Discord’s GIF search
- The request is sent to a Memmy server which then processes the request for you
- You receive a response with both the direct URL to each of the GIF results as well as a proxy URL. All of the results are displayed to you through the proxy.
- When you select a GIF, the direct link is added to your post or comment as an image embed.
- In a future update, there are plans for Lemmy to offer built in proxying of images. Hopefully this will be available soon. However if it is not, for 30 minutes the GIF you added to the comment will continue to be proxied through Memmy so as not to create an immediate link to you creating the request for the image.
This is somewhat similar to the Signal implementation of Giphy some time ago. I’m focused on cleaning up some other issues right now, but I’d like to add this in sometime in the near future. Will keep you posted.
Just checking in to say I got it working here. I have a bog standard lemmy.ml account and it was just repeatedly giving me incorrect login errors until I removed the account and re-added it. Once I re-added it everything suddenly started working as expected again. So if anyone is still unable to log into lemmy.ml after updating, that seems to be the path forward. Just remember, Remove is sliding left on your account name. Not the same as Account Deletion!
(BTW, the Remove vs Delete UI is pretty obscure and very terrifying. Hiding the option to Remove behind a slide feature and leaving the nuclear option out in the open is… not ideal IMHO. I personally think you should have 2 buttons visible if you’re even going to implement permanent account deletion from an instance at all. Did not check whether there are multiple “are you sures” on the Account Deletion one, but I sure hope so!)
Thank you, I don’t know why I didn’t try this immediately. I’ve been missing using Mlem and missing memmy
Thank you again for your work on this. I’d wager that a vast majority of Memmy users are grateful for what you are doing and understand that there are going to be issues as this app is being developed.
Unfortunately, the negative comments stand out more than the positive ones and they hurt more than the positive ones help. That is just how we humans tend to be wired. All I can say is “thanks” again and I appreciate all the unpaid work you have done for us. I try to report any issues I find and provide details to help you reproduce.
To all the understanding users out there, please try to do the same. In case this is helpful, here is a list of the things I do and try to provide when I report a bug:
-Make sure I’m updated to the latest release. When reporting, note the release version and my OS version.
-Try to figure out how to reproduce the issue. If you can, give step by step instructions on how to trigger the issue. If you can’t, try to provide any relevant details on when the issue tends to crop up.
-provide screenshots when helpful.
-if it isn’t 100% obvious based on the issue, explain why it’s a problem and what behavior you are expecting from the app.
Edit: also, try to reproduce the issue on accounts from more than one instance and, if relevant, see if the issue is actually occurring when using your account in a browser or other interface. Sometimes the issues we experience have nothing to do with Memmy. By reproducing on more than one instance, you are more likely to be reporting a Memmy issue rather than a localized problem outside of Memmy.
