eJabberd “Cannot read schema”

Posted on by nils
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Trying to start ejabberd I got errors such as these:

2017-09-01 00:35:06.928 [error] <0.37.0> CRASH REPORT Process <0.37.0> with 0 neighbours exited with reason: {aborted,{“Cannot read schema”,”/var/lib/ejabberd/schema.DAT”,{error,{file_error,”/var/lib/ejabberd/schema.DAT”,eacces}}}} in application_master:init/4 line 133

Turns out I made a very simple mistake; I had attempted to start eJabebrd with “systemctl start ejabberd”. However, ejabberd brings its own control application. The correct way to start it is “ejabberctl start”.

Easy-RSA: “failed to update database”

Posted on by nils
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Attempted to create a new certificate using the EasyRSA suite and got the following error:

“failed to update database”

Unfortunately the script is pretty laconic, but some quick testing showed this was due to trying to re-use the default display name:

Name [EasyRSA]:

Picked a different name and the script committed my certificate correctly.

Geekworker has a new home

Posted on by nils
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Please excuse the mess: We’ve moved!

I got tired of my (self-hosted) wordpress site for several reasons, the main ones being:

  • Having my own hardware in a datacenter is way too expensive
  • WordPress ran way too slowly and I felt like I do not have the time to properly optimise it

So, I’ve migrated the Geekworker blog to blogger.com. Blogger works surprisingly well and I really like the interface. There are some drawbacks too, such as not having a good font for code snippets.

The import – I had to use a third party site for conversion – seems to have worked, too, but expect some font weirdness and broken images until I can go through all posts and fix them. Thanks for your patience!

Update, August 5th: Broken images and the worst formatting problems should now be fixed. Don’t hesitate to report problems, please!

Sony Vegas and Sony Movie Studio: No Audio Tracks In mp4 video filefound

Posted on by nils
1

I use OBS Studio to record videos, and would ideally like to record multiple audio tracks (so that I might balance audio levels in post-production). Unfortunately, when I import these MP4 videos into Sony Movie Studio Platinum, it detects no audio tracks.

The problem is a buggy DLL file.

To fix this, go to your program’s install folder (mine resides in D:ApplicationsSonyMovie Studio Platinum 12.0) and find a subdirectory called “FileIO Plug-Inscompoundplug”. In this folder, you will find a file called “compoundplug.dll”. Simply rename this (to “compoundplug.backup”, for example) and your Sony Vegas or Sony Movie Studio should now import mp4 files correctly – even with multiple audio tracks.

Update, 2017-08-03: Never versions of Movie Studio likely do not have this problem. I have upgraded to Vegas Pro 14, and it reads files with multiple audio tracks just fine.

Livestreamer: Downloading Twitch Streams Results in 400 Client Error:Bad Request

Posted on by nils
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I use Livestreamer to download my own VOD files when I dun goofed and break my local recordings. This used to work perfectly, but as I write this, the software is broken due to an update in the Twitch API that enforces authentication.

error: Unable to open URL: 
https://api.twitch.tv/api/channels/havejoystick/access_token.json 
(400 Client Error: Bad Request)

There is a workaround, however; you can hand over a client specific token. Right now, this is the one used by Twitch’s web player:

livestreamer --http-header Client-ID=jzkbprff40iqj646a697cyrvl0zt2m6

This works like a charm. For now.

OpenVPN: IP packet with unknown IP version seen

Posted on by nils
1

While setting up a new OpenVPN, I got this message:

Sep 23 21:05:25 ascalon openvpn[18770]: krynn/aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:xxxxx IP packet with unknown IP version=3 seen

The cause was that I had set my OpenVPN server to “dev tun”, while setting my Windows client to “dev tap” in the configuration. Changing the client to also be “dev tun” fixed the issue.

Easy-RSA Jabber SSL Certificate Problems

Posted on by nils
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I’m currently setting up a new server and ran into something odd. Connecting to ejabberd with Pidgin, the later would reject the SSL certificate outright. At first I thought I had messed up the hostnames, or used an outdated Hash algorithm or whatever.

The errors I saw in the debug window were:

(22:17:42) nss: ERROR -8102: SEC_ERROR_INADEQUATE_KEY_USAGE
(22:17:42) nss: ERROR -8101: SEC_ERROR_INADEQUATE_CERT_TYPE

It turns out that SSL certificates can be flagged for what they can be used for, and I had simply created the certificate with the ./build-key command. Using ./build-key-server instead fixes the issue. The difference is that this will set nsCertType=server in the certificate.

I hope this helps anybody who runs into the same issue – it certainly had me pulling out my hair for a while.

How to Disable WordPress “Prove your Humanity” captcha code question

Posted on by nils
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A while back, WordPress introduced an annoying little feature, where you have to solve a simple math question in order to log in to your site:

I ignored this for a while, but decided it was too much of a hassle wile offering no real benefit. However, finding a way to disable it is not very intuitive, as it is not actually a core WordPress feature, but rather one added with Jetpack. It’s part of the Protect module:

Disabling Protect disables the captcha.

If you don’t see it on the main Jetpack page, click on the “See all xx Jetpack features” button:

and search for it:

After disabling, you’ll no longer get asked any nagging math questions on login:

PLEASE NOTE: Disabling this feature may decrease security for your site. Use your best judgement!