IPFS PubSub is woking incorrectly.

[downitch]

Hello folks!

I am developing an application, which is using IPFS to store database and as far as I know, there is only one way to inform users about changes inside IPFS – PubSub. I am using it to connect all the users to one channel, so I can broadcast messages to them.
The problem I discovered is:
I have two laptops connected to the same network, but I am unable to find each other in peer list. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I am understanding the idea of PubSub wrong?
I am using go-ipfs and js-ipfs(0.27.0), but none of them is working for me.

[AdamStone]

Not working for me either. I just tried subscribing to a common topic between two tabs and I'm not seeing any peers in ipfs.pubsub.peers or receiving any messages published by either window.

[downitch]

good to know, that I am not alone with this problem. Hope the solution is about to come..

[daviddias]

Did you check if your peers are connected? Which transports are you using?

[downitch]

Hi @diasdavid! I check my connection using
swarm peers
It says that I can see peers, after that I also use
pubsub peers
This command also shows me the list of peers connected to the same pubsub channel.
I even tried to use
ping
And it actually brings more peers to pubsub.
After pinging circa 4-6 peers I raised my list from 8 to 22, which means that it is important to ping others, but even by doing this, by pinging same peers from both laptops I still didn't achieve to connect them.

[richardschneider]

@rmnoff Could issue #1136 help you?

[AdamStone]

I'm using create-react-app with js-ipfs in node_modules linked to a clone of the latest master. I see 8 peers under both swarm and pubsub in both windows, but neither window is a peer of the other. Is it necessary at this stage that the two windows be mutual peers for pubsub messages to be seen? I am able to add files from one window and cat them from the other. If I inspect ipsf._libp2pNode.modules.transport I see WebSockets, WebRTCStar, WebsocketStar. However peerInfo has no multiaddrs. I'm just using default configuration, the only param passed into new IPFS is {EXPERIMENTAL: { pubsub: true }}, as in the example of ipfs-pubsub-room.

[pgte]

Both windows need to have different peer ids, which you can make by using distinct repo paths or distinct browsers.

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On 9 Dec 2017, 03:27 +0000, Adam Stone ***@***.***>, wrote: I'm using create-react-app with js-ipfs in node_modules linked to a clone of the latest master. I see 8 peers under both swarm and pubsub in both windows, but neither window is a peer of the other. Is it necessary at this stage that the two windows be mutual peers for pubsub messages to be seen? I am able to add files from one window and cat them from the other. If I inspect ipsf._libp2pNode.modules.transport I see WebSockets, WebRTCStar, WebsocketStar. However peerInfo has no multiaddrs. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[AdamStone]

Hm, I had made a point to use different repo paths for each window when I started trying this and it wasn't working, but at some point I removed the repo path when trying different configurations, restored it and now it works. Still not sure why it wasn't working initially, maybe just because I had been in a branch that didn't have the latest code.

[daviddias]

Just released js-ipfs 0.27.3 that includes the bug fix by @richardschneider and also ships a new dist version. Can you try it and let me know if it works well for you?

[downitch]

@diasdavid hello! I've upgraded my js-ipfs version and now it works great for situations, when I am having two devices connected to the same network, but when it comes to communication between two devices working in different networks, being in distance, it comes to the situation, where both devices are able to see peers in PubSub (some of them are same), but they are still unable to see each other. It happens with go-ipfs also.
Hope it will help to solve the issue :)

[daviddias]

Still haven't been able to reproduce this problem. Given that it is stated that the problem happens with js-ipfs and go-ipfs, I'm going to guess that it is something with the setup rather then the code.

I'm closing given that this has been stale for a while, but if you happen to create an effective repro case, let us know :)