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Software: Why is EigenD talking to Eigenlabs.com so much?

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written by: geert

Hi Paul,

We're still concerned about the size of that bug report file. Do you still have it? Could you put it somewhere that we can download it from, maybe through DropBox or another file sharing service?

Thanks,

Geert

written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 13:54:45 +0000 GMT

I have been curious about something espcially since I've noticed that when I play my Eigenharp live and broadcast via Shoutcast to my relay, I've been having upload problems which don't happen when I'm not using EigenD (1.4 stable in this case). So I'm about to do a live show which I'm setting up for and my Mac laptop's network port as seen by my studio's switch is blinking like crazy, which is shouldn't be doing (I don't stream from that computer, and the laptop is only running EigenD).

So I fired up Wireshark to look at it. My laptop is very busy transmitting something to ip address 46.137.103.211. And it's 1.4 megabytes in a 17 second sample going there. I only have a 768k upload here, and I need 128k for the streaming out. So whatever this is, it's not helpful and it explains why I can do radio shows with no problems whenever I'm not trying to use the Eigenharp live.

For now I guess I'll unplug the laptop from the network so I can perform today. But I'd like to know why it's happening and what is so important that large amounts of traffic need to go to eigenlabs from my laptop, especially when I'm trying to play music with it.


written by: john

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:21:49 +0000 GMT

If that's coming from EigenD then that's a bug. EigenD does phone home when it runs, if it can, with a very small amount of information (it tells us what version is being run on what OS, so that we know when we can retire support for old OS's and how many people are still running old code) but that is bytes of information, it shouldn't even get into the K, never mind MB. We don't send anything that could constitute a privacy violation, I hate that kind of thing. The only circumstances when it might be sending that kind of volume of data is when you've used the bug reporter, as it bundles up a great pile of debug stuff and sends it with the report, but this should only happen once.

Just to be sure, are you certain it's coming from EigenD? If you are then we'll go hunting for it.

John


written by: steveelbows

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:44:35 +0000 GMT

I've not seen anything like this on my Mac with either 1.4.x or 2.0.x

I do see the tiny flicker of info that John mentions, but nothing besides that since I got a Pico in late 2009.

If I had network midi setup on the mac, or was routing OSC to another machine then I'd expect to see a lot of flashing and blinking going on ala William Shatner in Airplane II, but I don't think I've ever seen EigenD bombarding my network. So I am rather curious as to whats happening in your case.


written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:26:05 +0000 GMT

Absolutely sure it's coming from EigenD. Maybe bug reporter is stuck or something. It runs fairly regularly, about once a half hour, and seems to blow about 16mb upstream. I can package up the network dump if you want to pick at it. I unplugged the laptop for the performance I just did, and when I plugged it back in, it started up again. When EigenD isn't running I don't have such symptoms.

EigenD also sends a UDP packet every two seconds or so but I reckoned that's it's "hi there" for Stage to see, That is not what I am seeing. This is a fairly chunky data dump being sent to Eigenlabs.

Given how long I've had my Alpha and the number of versions, setups, etc, I wouldn't be surprised, but this took a while for me to finally pin it to EigenD.

Like I said, it's reproducible so I can provide a dump of the conversation, if you don't see anything on your end coming from harriman4.net. It should be in a log on your end somewhere too.

I haven't reported a bug in 1.4 bugreporter in ages, by the bye.


written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:38:27 +0000 GMT

It even does it when I start up EigenD... O_o capturing with wireshark now.


written by: geert

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:43:40 +0000 GMT

That's really weird, it shouldn't do that indeed. Can you check if there's something in your user Library/Eigenlabs/Bugs directory? That's where the queued bug reports live before they're sent out.


written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:55:18 +0000 GMT

yes, there is a 68.1mb zip file from 12 January 2012 in there. Good catch. Maybe I should just delete it?


written by: geert

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:00:03 +0000 GMT

Deleting it is a quick fix indeed. If you're up for it though it would be interesting to leave it and see if the upload succeeds eventually, deleting the bug report when it's done. Could it be that it was never able to stay connected long enough to send the file?

Also, 68.1MB is gigantic, I'm curious to see what's in there! :-)


written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:12:53 +0000 GMT

moved it back, and yes, it appears to be uploading again. I don't have any more need for bandwidth upstream tonight, I'm just doing radio operator stuff now and listening to other people, so I can afford to let it upload to completion. Which, by the way, I think it's done a few times since January already ... ^_^


written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:13:17 +0000 GMT

I moved the file out and, well, no massive network upload stuff happened on the next restart. The capture I did had over 80mb from when I started it, so I wonder what's going on with the upload to eigenlabs.... I'll move it back and let it roll again. And I have no idea why it's so huge. O_o


written by: EdisonRex

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 20:52:43 +0000 GMT

I let it do its thing and the file was still in the queue so I've moved it out. the setup in the zip file is 376mb. If you haven't received it, I can send it by other means. Anyway, mystery solved, so thanks for the quick help.

-Paul


written by: steveelbows

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:18:32 +0000 GMT

Perhaps the size of the file or the time it takes for the transfer to complete is causing the Eigenlabs server to not send a 'yeah I got it ok' back to the application.


written by: dhjdhj

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 03:30:15 +0000 GMT

As a matter of principle this should not happen unless the user has been prompted and agrees to "allow anonymous data to be sent to eigenlabs"

In practice, little snitch on a Mac or zone alarm on a PC can be used to block by default such communications


written by: EdisonRex

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 11:28:59 +0000 GMT

Well, David, I think there is something in the EULA about anonymous data and I don't mind that part. I can deal with the small UDP packets too. And leave it to me to have the crash dump from hell.

In January I was having a lot of crashes, pushing the envelope with convolver files and apple loops and Alpha Setup 3. This particular zip file I think was related to that.

It would however be nice to have an indication, at some point, that EigenD is in the throes of sending a bug report, and that the bug report was in fact sent. I might have figured this out for myself, but it took me long enough to figure out the correlation between leaving EigenD running (which I do a lot) and network problems on my house's LAN, which is more complicated than a lot of small business LANs. There are over 25 networked devices in this house, not counting infrastructure like switches, routers, or firewalls. With kids playing Steam games, consoles, backups, wireless webcams, Vonage and Skype, there were many paths to explore. It was only because I had labeled every switch port in the house that I figured out who was yapping. My switches are smart enough to keep segments apart, which complicates sniffing, and I separate traffic types like the phones from the main house LAN.

But live and learn. I'll know for next time.


written by: dhjdhj

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 14:40:01 +0000 GMT

Right. Because everyone reads (and understands the consequences of) EULAs.

This is not the place for a deep discusion on this topic but see my blog article from last year.

Well, David, I think there is something in the EULA about anonymous data and I don't mind that part


written by: geert

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:53:10 +0000 GMT

Hi Paul,

We're still concerned about the size of that bug report file. Do you still have it? Could you put it somewhere that we can download it from, maybe through DropBox or another file sharing service?

Thanks,

Geert



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