Hi,

I got a message in the 'Telegram' channel on telegram: "Please update your app to the latest version. The version you are using is out of date and will stop working soon."

There is a 3.1.1 in testing but I won't upgrade the whole system from
stable to testing for that. How can I upgrade to a version that won't
stop working soon?

Shouldn't there be a policy in the telegram team to support old clients
as long as they are in current stable versions of distributions? Is the
version of telegram-desktop in debian stable supported at all, does it
get security updates and backported security fixes?

Ralf

Hello!

Could you test version 2.9.2 from backports? Does the message appear
there?
For a backports guide see: https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

If even this version is considered ancient, I could backport 3.1.1 from
testing. I am sure it still is working.

From what I know, versions older that 3.1.1 are unable to operate for
newly registered users whose UIDs do not fit signed 32bit. However, the
older versions continue to work for already existing users.

As a maintainer I can only offer you to switch to backports repository.
Release managers do not happy with huge updates after Debian freeze.
Telegram team in their turn is primarily focused on implementing new
features. The goals seem contradictory, and users stuck between a rock
and a hard place.

Hi,

I got the message "Please update your app to the latest version. The
version you are using is out of date and will stop working soon." again.

Twice.

First in the 'Telegram' channel, than in a message box.

Obviously it is very urgent and the package will stop working completely
for all users in a couple of days.

I ask again if this is fully thought through. The Telegram people know
the version in Debian 11.1 is 2.6.1 and 11.1 is relatively fresh -- this
is public knowledge, after all. Don't they care about their users? How
can they kick out users of stable distros and not at least offer a
workaround? Why do they say 'please upgrade' (in an annoying way) if
they know I have no upgrading options? For me the desktop version is why
I use Telegram and not Signal or Threema.

Asked from the other perspective, what are the Debian plans to follow
Telegram's forced client upgrades?

Ralf

Hi,

ok, your mail arrived while I wrote my last one and I only saw it after
sending.

I am upgrading to 2.9.2+ds-1~bpo11+1 now -- one machine is done, the
others will follow (the messages in the 'Telegram' channel confusingly
also appear in the up-to-date iOS app so I will have to update all
clients). I think I will see tomorrow or in the next couple of days if I
still get these messages. Or faster -- the message box appeared again,
maybe it is set every couple of minutes?

Wasn't there a similar problem with firefox where a solution was worked
out to follow upstream more closely?

Thank you so far!

Ralf

Hi,

sadly I still get the messages with 2.9.2. I upgraded all my machines to
this version to be sure I don't get warnings about an old client on one
machine on another newer client. The message box appeared promptly on
start of telegram-desktop and reappears every couple of minutes. This
clearly signals urgentness :-(.

Apparently something fresher is needed, like e.g. the aforementioned 3.1.1 .

Thank you in advance!

Ralf

Hi!

I've upgraded telegram-desktop to 2.9.2+ds-1~bpo11+1 after getting the
notification, but still got one after that. Yesterday I noticed some
lags in message delivery, and since today I don't receive any new
messages (but I see them in mobile client). I guess, Telegram started
to roll server updates yesterday, and now all (or most) servers already
require new client version (3.x or something like that).

Hello!

I have uploaded this version to Backports. It is already available on
mirrors and should work okay.
https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/telegram-desktop/

Hi Nicholas,

That's fantastic, everything works ok now! Thank you!

I set up new Firefox profile with Telegram tab just in case, put that in
place of old Telegram window, that worked for me for a day, but now I am
back to using telegram desktop app. Great work:)

Hi Nicholas,

I can second that, everything is fine now! Thank you for the quick reaction!

Just to have it documented somewhere, in one of the out-of-date versions
I had to click the [Ok] button in the message box multiple times to
activate the window after having been away for some time. I assume the
message boxes were stacking, about five or ten exactly one over the
other. Since the upgrade to 3.1.1 I can't reproduce this any more for
lack of urgent messages, but the code may still behave the same way if
it is triggered the next time and it is very confusing for users.

Thank you again,
Ralf

telegram-cli was also outdated and may remain so if no longer supported.

Hello.

Same problem here. Even after upgrade to unstable version (3.1.8+ds-1)
or downgrade to backported version (3.1.1+ds-1~bpo11+1). Still there is
box about no working client (screenshot attached) and i'm missing
messages (include new ones) from groups... :(

J.K.

FYI, 3.1.1+ds-1~bpo11+1 is ok now, thanks.

J.K.

Dear Nicholas,
months or so, even longer for oldstable).

If telegram-desktop is useless in stable and isn't supportable in
stable, you should request it's removal from stable ($(reportbug
release.debian.org)).

Also, if I read you correctly I think we should stop shipping
telegram-desktop in testing as it seems you can't support it for long in
any Debian stable release. Maybe you should look for supporting the
users via https://fasttrack.debian.net/

Paul

PS: the argument about firefox-esr is valid, but we consider that an
unavoidable exception (not shipping a web-browser sounds like a bad idea).

While thinking this, please also consider that this is the first time ever
that telegram broke its API in such strong backward incompatible way.

In the past it only added features that, at most, prevented old clients to
display the newest type of messages, hardly something RC.

Please don't be too quick in judging telegram not stable-worthy just for
one breaking APi change.

Hi Mattia,
not remove the package from testing for this reason.

That said, if the package in stable and oldstable is non-functional and
can't be updated without jumping to a much never version, it's probably
best to request its removal from stable and oldstable.
Paul

Hi,

+1 to not shipping a incompatible version by default.

This also applies to ubuntu-lts and probably other downstream distros.

Any idea why the version got that outdated in the firstplace?

cheers
Felix

As of today (March 30th 2022), package telegram-desktop in
bullseye is effectively no longer usable, since the version is
considered too old by the remote server.

Best regards.

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
telegram-desktop, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1001016@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Nicholas Guriev <guriev-ns@ya.ru> (supplier of updated telegram-desktop package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2021 11:25:20 +0300
Source: telegram-desktop
Built-For-Profiles: noudeb
Architecture: source
Version: 3.1.1+ds-1~deb11u2
Distribution: bullseye
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Nicholas Guriev <guriev-ns@ya.ru>
Changed-By: Nicholas Guriev <guriev-ns@ya.ru>
Closes: 1001016
Changes:
 telegram-desktop (3.1.1+ds-1~deb11u2) bullseye; urgency=medium
 .
   * Full update from bookworm for compatibility with layer 133 of Telegram API.
     Closes: #1001016.
   * Disable OpenGL acceleration by default, can be re-enabled in settings.
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