When i attempted to update “org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 2.2.0” It failed as it went to a very slow B/sec download at 8% complete and would always fail when using flathub. When I used a VPN connection it worked.
The updates are encryped so is there other alternative flathub site ? This appears to be a network problem from a specific network site.
openh264 comes directly from Cisco for legal reasons. Fortunately, you don’t really need it; you can install the org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full extension (it’s typically automatically pulled in by apps that can use it, but notably not Firefox).
You can flatpak mask it to prevent it from being installed.
ffmpeg-full is opt-in by apps, it won’t be automatically mounted. It’s not defined in the runtime manifest.
This is an update that was defined by flatpak when I perfromed a flatpak update.
It is also interesting to note that another app was able to update with no incident but only org.freedesktop.platform.openh264 2.2.0 did not update untill I used a VPN.
As I said, openh264 doesn’t come from Flathub’s servers. It’s distributed directly from Cisco, just as it is on Fedora, for example. There have been many reports of connectivity issues, but there’s not much anyone can do about it.
But as bbhtt mentioned, there are some apps that could benefit from h.264 support that aren’t set up to use ffmpeg-full. For those apps, openh264 is the only available option. The only example I know of is GNOME Web, but I’m sure there are others.
This has happened to another Debian 12 workstation while performing an update. I did not specfiy updating openh264 so how can I determine what is requesting this specfic update ?
I do not agree with your statement that it doesn’t come from flathub as the first machine received the the update when i switched to another network via a VPN. It was provided by
flatpak remotes
Name Options
flathub user
To clarify, what I meant is that the actual payload doesn’t come from Flathub. It uses Flatpak’s extra data mechanism to avoid redistributing the file (because that would void the patent grant from Cisco).
I don’t know why it would be updating now given that openh264 2.2.0 hasn’t changed since 2022. flatpak update would install it if any of the runtimes that use it are installed, but normally it would already be installed.
Your reposnse describing a extra data mechanism makes no sense.
Why would it update using ProtonVPN USA connection and not my own Canadian network ? I have version openh264 org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 2.4.1 installed but it is trying to install an addiotional older version. If version 2.2.0 the latest version?
org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 is a runtime extension. Each runtime branch defines the version it wants to use, so you can have multiple versions of the extension installed to satisfy each installed runtime.
The 2.2.0 branch is used by org.freedesktop.Platform//23.08, as well as the GNOME and KDE runtimes that are based on it.
As for extra data:
$ flatpak remote-info -m flathub org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264//2.2.0
[Runtime]
name = org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264
runtime = org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08
sdk = org.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/20.08
[Extra Data]
name = libopenh264-2.2.0-linux64.6.so.bz2
checksum = 45ba1aaeb6213c19cd9622b79788e16b05beabc4d16a3a74e57f046a0826fd77
size = 613660
uri = http://ciscobinary.openh264.org/libopenh264-2.2.0-linux64.6.so.bz2
NoRuntime = true
Flatpak downloads uri. I can’t tell you exactly why your ISP may have trouble connecting to Cisco’s servers.
If this has to do with my ISP this means flatpaks are not secure as an ISP can prevent proper updates.
How do i find the dependancy on
org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264 ?
2 of my Debian 12 machines are trying to request this old version.
The exact eror I get when updating is as follows.
Warning: While downloading http://ciscobinary.openh264.org/libopenh264-2.2.0-linux64.6.so.bz2: While fetching http://ciscobinary.openh264.org/libopenh264-2.2.0-linux64.6.so.bz2: [28] Timeout was reached
flatpaks are not secure as an ISP can prevent proper updates.
Your ISP can see what URL you are requesting, and can block the connection if it so wishes. That is true of pretty much everything that requests traffic through the ISP, and has no bearing on whether flatpak is secure.
As the error message states, your ISP is timing out while trying to connect to the cisco URL. That is a concern to bring up with your isp, as that URL is valid and resolves correctly.