Failure in Telegram setup results in RAM leak

[Lympri]

Description:
If you try and fail to configure Telegram access and just leave it there, nchat starts in loop trying to login again and again:

"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.862 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.863 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}
"  (tgchat.cpp:2216)
2024-08-05 21:10:06.863 | WARN  | auth error "error {
  code = 401
  message = "Wrong database encryption key"
}

This will go on so long that machine either totally freezes or puts out OOM error and forekills nchat.

How to reproduce it:
Setup Telegram and fail, don't remove config of it

Environment:

• Version: nchat v4.86
• OS / distro: Arch Linux x86_64, 6.10.2-arch1-1

Additional info
I did not test if failure in Whatsapp does same, nor did I test anything else, this just bugged me for half of year and I wish no one else should suffer from this.

[d99kris]

Hi @Lympri - thanks for reporting a bug! Could you share a bit more detailed steps, as I cannot reproduce the problem here. I tried from a clean slate, i.e. using a non-existent nchat config dir, selected Telegram, entered a valid phone number, entered wrong authentication code. Nchat exits directly (i.e. no hang or repeated log entries).

$ nchat -d ~/tmpnchat -e -s
Protocols:
0. Dummy
1. Telegram
2. WhatsAppMd
3. Exit setup
Select protocol (3): 1
Enter phone number (ex. +6511111111): +xxxxxxxxxxxx    (my actual number redacted)
Enter authentication code: 99735
Authentication error: PHONE_CODE_INVALID
Setup failed
$

(I also attempted wrong phone number and wrong password, same results)

Is the above what you did too (wrong authentication code), or something else?

Do you have a single profile, or multiple protocols/profiles set up (like ok WhatsApp + failed Telegram, or other combination)?

Thanks!

[Lympri]

(I also attempted wrong phone number and wrong password, same results)

Is the above what you did too (wrong authentication code), or something else?

I cannot login to telegram as it says that I need to update telegram. My telegram-cli should be at newest version

$ pacman -Q --info telegram-cli
Name            : telegram-cli-git
Version         : r1365.7f8f739-1

Do you have a single profile, or multiple protocols/profiles set up (like ok WhatsApp + failed Telegram, or other combination)?

I am not quite sure, I had in profiles folder 2 directories, 1 for WhatsApp (working, but I didn't use it because using it ate all ram)

[Lympri]

(I also attempted wrong phone number and wrong password, same results)

Is the above what you did too (wrong authentication code), or something else?

I cannot login to telegram as it says that I need to update telegram. My telegram-cli should be at newest version

$ pacman -Q --info telegram-cli
Name            : telegram-cli-git
Version         : r1365.7f8f739-1

Do you have a single profile, or multiple protocols/profiles set up (like ok WhatsApp + failed Telegram, or other combination)?

I am not quite sure, I had in profiles folder 2 directories, 1 for WhatsApp (working, but I didn't use it because using it ate all ram) and another for Telegram (but it's removed allready).

After that removal WhatsApp has worked like a charm.

[d99kris]

I cannot login to telegram as it says that I need to update telegram.

Could you share the error message? The telegram service maintains support for old clients pretty long, so you would need a very old version of nchat to run into that, should definitely not happen in v4.86.

My telegram-cli should be at newest version

nchat does not use telegram-cli. nchat has its telegram client code bundled / built-in.

I am not quite sure, I had in profiles folder 2 directories, 1 for WhatsApp (working, but I didn't use it because using it ate all ram) and another for Telegram (but it's removed allready).

Thanks, this is useful! I will try this scenario.

[d99kris]

Was able to reproduce repeated "Wrong database encryption key" log entries now, although in a bit hacky way:

1. Set up telegram successfully, exit nchat
2. Remove line starting with local_key= from nchat/profiles/Telegram_+nnnnnnnn/telegram.conf
3. Start nchat again

Will prepare a fix which avoids the infinite loop in this scenario. I'm still not sure how one can end up in this situation (without manually editing/removing telegram.conf) but will do this fix for now.

[d99kris]

The high CPU usage and memory leak on broken Telegram setup should be addressed in above commit. Please let me know if still encountered.