transmission tries to use downloads folder but it doesnt exist

I don't know if we're going to do a 1.52 or not yet, but here's the patch against 1.51:

http://trac.transmissionbt.com/attachment/ticket/1773/startup.diff

I'll package this later on today. Just a quick question about this bit of the patch though charles:

#ifdef HAVE_GIO
    str = NULL;
    if( !str ) str = g_get_user_special_dir( G_USER_DIRECTORY_DESKTOP );
    if( !str ) str = g_get_user_special_dir( G_USER_DIRECTORY_DOWNLOAD );
    if( !str ) str = tr_getDefaultDownloadDir( );
    pref_string_set_default ( PREF_KEY_DIR_WATCH, str );
    pref_flag_set_default ( PREF_KEY_DIR_WATCH_ENABLED, FALSE );
#endif

Shouldn't G_USER_DIRECTORY_DOWNLOAD take priority over G_USER_DIRECTORY_DESKTOP? It just so happens that both of these are set to ~/Desktop by default on Ubuntu, so will not matter to most people. However, I manually changed my XDG download directory to ~/Download, and would expect Transmission to choose this instead of my desktop when I first run it. The patch suggests that it will still choose my desktop as opposed to my download directory, unless I've misunderstood it.

Hm, I think that's a good point. I agree that the two lines should be reversed to give G_USER_DIRECTORY_DOWNLOAD a higher priority.

Thanks, I'll package the patch shortly with those 2 lines reversed.

charles, I've tested the patch and it fixes the original bug. One thing I've noticed though, is that the default download directory is always ~/Downloads, regardless of what XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR is set too. This is because after the first time you call g_user_get_special_dir() to get the default watch directory, you clear the string returned by that, but that string is actually owned by glib and you can't clear it without messing up the internal glib data structure.

I'll incorporate a fix for that in this patch too.

Hmmm, ok, that's not it. I'll keep looking at it, but you'll probably figure it out before me ;)

chris: I don't see where I'm misusing the return value of g_get_user_special_dir(). transmission calls it three times, all in tr_prefs_init_defaults(), and puts the return value in a const char* each time.

My guess is that the first time you run Transmission, it gets the g_get_user_special_dir(G_USER_DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY) and stores it in ~/.config/transmission/settings.json, and reads it from there in subsequent sessions. So if you change XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR *after* that first session, then there's some shear between settings.json and XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR.

If that's what's going on, I'd agree that it's a little odd, but I wouldn't call it a bug -- the alternative would be to get rid of the configuration option and always defer to XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR, but that would preclude users from having custom watch & download directories for torrents... which is something a large percentage of Transmission users do...

Hm, we could accomplish both if we had two options in the preferences:

[x] Use system default download directory
[ ] Use custom directory [ Directoryname | v ]

This feels like overkill to me. My (admittedly uninformed) guess is that most users won't ever know about XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR or the dirs options in ~/.config/.

I think I should have explained a little better. If I start with a fresh user profile (after deleting ~/.config/transmission), then the default download directory always seems to be ~/Downloads on the first run (regardless of what I set XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR to), whereas the watch directory is always configured correctly as XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR.

I thought initially that the string returned from g_get_user_special_dir was being misused, but you are right - it is being used correctly. I still can't figure out what is going on though.

There is no need to have a seperate checkbox just for system default directory.
Simply set the entry for "custom directory" to be the system default directory by default, but allow it to be changed

@chris: I think this is fixed upstream now in <http://trac.transmissionbt.com/changeset/8048/>

upstream reference for the secondary issue: <http://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/1913>

Thanks charles. I still see the same behaviour with the second patch though. I've done some debugging, and what seems to be happening is that the correct setting is overwritten later on after returning from tr_prefs_init_defaults. In tr_sessionLoadSettings, tr_sessionGetDefaultSettings is called which unconditionally overwrites the (correct) default download directory with the return value of tr_getDefaultDownloadDir (~/Downloads).

I commented out the call to tr_sessionGetDefaultSettings, rebuilt it, and it seems to work as expected.

Yes; changeset 8048 didn't pick up that change because I'm stupid and did "svn commit" in the gtk directory instead of the parent directory. The rest of the fix is in 8049.

If an unpatched 8049 doesn't do the trick for you, or I'm misunderstanding something, let me know.

Thanks charles, I'll build and test that when I get home from work later.

Thanks, that works ok now.

This bug was fixed in the package transmission - 1.51-0ubuntu3

---------------
transmission (1.51-0ubuntu3) jaunty; urgency=low

  * 30_first-run-pref-error-fix.patch:
    - Don't show an error when the preferences dialog is opened
      for the first time (LP: #338046).
  * 31_honor-xdg_download_dir.patch:
    - Honor the users XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR when running for the first time.

 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:35:43 +0000