On Android I use a privacy OS, so no Google push notifications.
On PC I use a debian based Linux.
The devices connect through an external VPN provider.
Focusing on the mobile app, I tried connecting through the cellular network too, to narrow down the issue. The phone and PC is linked with the same account.
I have a single contact as of now, but on the phone it’s stuck in the invitation phase and it says it’s “downloading conversation from peer”. But it isn’t.
What settings do I need? I kinda hoped it would just work on default settings.
I was lead to believe Jami is extremely easy to use. Well, so far it seems anything but simple.
I guess this is what I get for stepping onto uncharted territory.
If someone could walk me through the setup, I’d appreciate it.
If I can get this running reliably and get rid of the mainstream platforms, I pledge to set up a monthly donation. I’m subscribed to FB, just to keep in touch with a few people. I’d far rather give that money to a better cause.
You are very welcome. I think you need to first check your network status. Having a public IPv4 or IPv6 address is preferable
When you have IPv6 or public IPv4, this software can work normally in most cases
I exposed the Jami app to the internet via the Split tunneling function, so it should not go through the VPN and go directly through the ISP. It still doesn’t start the chat up, just keeps showing the “downloading conversation from peer”.
It also doesn’t work on the computer, but that’s a compound issue, so I’ll focus on the phone for now.
I use IodeOS.
I installed the ntfy app, I tried using the Local DHT so far for a Connectivity Mode, but to no avail.
Not sure what to do with ntfy then. Does it need configuring?
I tried putting it on, it didn’t help so far.
I tried creating a new account on my spare phone with a stock Android. Jami installed from Play store.
Default app settings. Find my first account, invite, then nothing happens on my devices with the first account.
Update: oh, I disabled the DHT Proxy in the phone, and now I could get the invitation from the Test account, it connected and even my welcome text didn’t get lost!
But it doesn’t seem to receive the notification when in the background, so ntfy doesn’t just work straight ouf of the box?
And the computer is a completely different story, I’ll get to that once the phone works reliably.
So, what should I try next?
Alright, so Local DHT seems to work just fine so long the app keeps running in the background.
I could place calls and send text, pics back and forth between two phones. One on wifi, the other on cellular network.
It seems to receive messages and calls through the VPN tunnel as well (via a VPN provider), so that shouldn’t be an issue.
So all I needed to do is just not use a DHT Proxy on the phone. Although in theory that should work too, no?
However the camera doesn’t seem to work on the phone with IodeOS on, so the stock Android sends a video stream just fine in a video call, but the one with Iode on has just got a blank black camera feed. It has got the Camera permission, so not sure what else is there to check.
And lastly my single live contact somehow put us into a group (or the linking of IodeOS to the PC Client on my end), so that probably explains the weird “downloading conversation from peer” thing.
I deleted the group and this contact remained on my list, but now I can open it normally and get the chat window as I should. Good.
(The Linux Desktop client keeps being troublesome, having microphone and camera input device issues, so that’s for another day… But the messages get through that too at least.
Edit: this seems more of a kernel issue than Jami issue - that my USB devices keep disappearing -, so I’ll investigate this separately.)
Upon further testing I found that only the Local DHT connectivity mode works reliably WITHOUT the DHT Proxy. But that drains the battery and uses data like if I routed the traffic of the whole city, lol.
(I understand every Jami client that connects straight to the DHT network is a node by itself too? Like if I was hosting an OpenDHT node?)
On the de-googled phone with the F-droid flavour of Jami I don’t get Google Firebase, so I only have UnifiedPush. Ntfy doesn’t seem to be able to get through the VPN tunnel, so there’s that.
Meanwhile other apps that use Google FCM via MicroG work normally.
The Google phone (stock Android) of course has no issues whatsoever with push notifications.
Lastly, I tried to use Local DHT but WITH proxy. My initial test wasn’t successful, but more testing is needed with battery optimization off.
Only if I could get Ntfy running behind the VPN, that would be great…
Or I guess I could always try the Play Store flavour of Jami that has Google FCM in it and is known to work reliably on my de-googled phone along with other apps that use FCM.
But in the grand scheme of things, I’d rather not rely on Google servers. It’s a privacy concern mostly.
Anyone can share their thoughts on this? Or perhaps anyone has walked in my shoes: using Jami, but from behind a VPN?
PS: btw is the Play Store version privacy-friendly too? I believe Google has some sort of policy to integrate certain intrusive features in the apps that are published in their store, no?
