Skype Preview [Solved]

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Fitzcarraldo · Post by **Fitzcarraldo** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:07 am

I see that Skype for Linux Beta 5.3.0.1 and 5.4.0.1 have effectively been superseded by Skype Preview for Linux, which is currently at Version 8.6.76.56247.

There is an ebuild request in the Gentoo Bugzilla for the new version (Gentoo Bug No. 629464). I created an ebuild for Skype Preview in my local overlay by renaming the ebuild for Skype for Linux Beta 5.4.0.1 to net-im/skypeforlinux-8.6.76.56247.ebuild and changing the URL of the source repository (SRC_URI). The ebuild does install Skype Preview for Linux without any apparent problems.

However, although Skype for Linux Beta 5.3.0.1 and 5.4.0.1 work in my Gentoo Linux installation, Skype Preview for Linux (8.6.76.56247) does not. When I try to sign in, the sign-in window displays the message "Oops, there was a problem with Skype. Try signing out and back in.", and "STARTUP_LOAD_ERROR" appears below the white button with "Sign out" on it.

No matter how many times I sign out and sign in again, the same thing occurs.

This happens irrespective of whether or not the firewall is enabled.

I have already posted about this problem in the Skype Community forum (see first link above for thread). Any suggestions on what I can do to the ebuild, if anything, to get Skype Preview to work? At the moment I have had to revert to Skype for Linux Beta.

Roman_Gruber · Post by **Roman_Gruber** » Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:54 am

the old skype used to need some hidden package, which the mayority had installed. some qt related package with some special use - flag afaik

I expect and assume it is some hidden software requirement which the mayority of binary distro ships with. or is just assumed everyone has

quote: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/sky ... 840?auth=1

Got past a couple of glitches (the logs are useful) before hitting wall :

- dependencies added: libsecret, libv4l2 on top of what skype beta needed

- PLEASE dont hardcode paths, let us control $PATH. Eg. /usr/bin/wget. In my distro (Tinycore) that links to Busybox which does not support all options. Installed full wget at /usr/local/bin/wget but of course, the path is hardcoded. Had to manually relink.

Got logged in, could see recent chats, clicked on one - Skype window blanked completely. Menu remains but nothing responds. Only option that worked was Quit Skype from the tray icon. In fact whatever I click on having logged in it does that so unusable.

Nice to know this is actually happening. All those frustrations aimed at you during Beta (guilty as charged) would have been lessened if MS just communicated with us. Though the whole premise of removing P2P and basing on Electron is still wrong.

gruftie · Post by **gruftie** » Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:36 am

Fitzcarraldo wrote:"STARTUP_LOAD_ERROR" appears below the white button with "Sign out" on it.

Just in case you didn't get it to work yet:

I ran into the same error when I just renamed the old skypeforlinux ebuild. The problem is, that there is one directory inside the rpm package that starts with a "@" (/opt/skypeforlinux/resources/app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/@paulcbetts/) which seems to abort the rpm extraction, which the leads to actually 4 missing directories and their content.
I manually copied the missing directories over an I can login successfully.

However, I have no idea how to fix this or the ebuild.

Fitzcarraldo · Post by **Fitzcarraldo** » Thu Nov 02, 2017 1:33 pm

Thanks for posting. As you wrote, just renaming the Skype for Linux Beta ebuild does not work in the case of Skype Preview. I finally found a working ebuild for Skype Preview in the rion overlay:

http://gpo.zugaina.org/Overlays/rion/ne ... peforlinux

The unstable version of the Skype Preview package for Linux from Microsoft is in the following repository:

https://repo.skype.com/rpm/unstable/

It works quite well for me, although I have not tried all the features yet.

Perfect Gentleman · Post by **Perfect Gentleman** » Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:25 pm

I use Ghetto-Skype for a long time, no problems with it.

dmoulding · Post by **dmoulding** » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:03 pm

Today skypeforlinux 5.4.0.1 (which I had installed) told that me that it was no longer a supported version and I could no longer access any of my chats.

I saw that there is a 5.5.0.1 ebuild in the Gentoo repository, but I also noticed that the latest version available for download from skype.com is 8.11.0.4 (for RPM and deb users). That seems like a pretty wide gap, so I updated the ebuild myself and got it working for 8.11.0.4.

I've made an overlay with this ebuild available on GitHub at http://github.com/dmoulding/overlay.git

Hope that might help others whose skypeforlinux suddenly stops working one day.

Fitzcarraldo · Post by **Fitzcarraldo** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 1:16 pm

dmoulding,

Does the existing ebuild in the rion overlay not work for you, then? That overlay regularly updates the net-im/skypeforlinux ebuild to the latest version (it currently has the ebuild for 8.11.76.8, for example).

tkzv · Post by **tkzv** » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:23 pm

Thanks!!!

Renamed the Rion ebuild skypeforlinux-8.11.76.8.ebuild to skypeforlinux-8.12.76.2.ebuild and it worked fine.

I was finally able to import chat history logs from Skype 4.

STARTUP_LOAD_ERROR no longer appears.

There were some sound problems with Echo — partial loss of incoming signal. Not sure, whose fault it is.

Barbieken · Post by **Barbieken** » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:46 pm

Does tray icon fork for you with skype preview 8.x? I don't see tray icon at all in KDE plasma.

Fitzcarraldo · Post by **Fitzcarraldo** » Mon Nov 27, 2017 6:56 pm

Barbieken wrote:Does tray icon fork for you with skype preview 8.x? I don't see tray icon at all in KDE plasma.

Not sure what you mean by 'fork', but I have a Skype icon in the KDE Plasma 5 System Tray, and it remains there if I sign out of Skype, only disappearing if I click on it and select 'Quit Skype'.

However, I do experience a problem with the audio in Skype Preview for Linux 8.12.76.2 released today, at least when installed on my Clevo W230SS laptop running Gentoo Stable with a few keyworded packages: The female voice in Skype Test Call is so choppy that less than half of what she says is audible. Similarly, the playback of my voice recorded by Skype Test Call is so choppy that less than half of what I said is audible. If I revert to Skype Preview for Linux 8.11.76.8, or the versions previous to that, there is no break-up in the audio in or out.

dmoulding · Post by **dmoulding** » Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:50 pm

Fitzcarraldo wrote:dmoulding,

Does the existing ebuild in the rion overlay not work for you, then? That overlay regularly updates the net-im/skypeforlinux ebuild to the latest version (it currently has the ebuild for 8.11.76.8, for example).

The URL that was posted earlier for the rion overaly didn't work for me, gave me a 404 error. Looking at the ebuild from the github URL you posted, I'd guess that it probably would have worked for me, though it looks like it's missing some dependencies (but those would likely be installed on any system that has an X desktop environment).

Barbieken · Post by **Barbieken** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 9:55 am

Fitzcarraldo wrote: Not sure what you mean by 'fork', but I have a Skype icon in the KDE Plasma 5 System Tray, and it remains there if I sign out of Skype, only disappearing if I click on it and select 'Quit Skype'.

I meant 'work'.

Rion · Post by **Rion** » Tue Nov 28, 2017 6:47 pm

dmoulding wrote:Looking at the ebuild from the github URL you posted, I'd guess that it probably would have worked for me, though it looks like it's missing some dependencies (but those would likely be installed on any system that has an X desktop environment).

feel free to make a pull request

I don't check each next release for dependencies.

Rion · Post by **Rion** » Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:12 pm

The new skypeforlinux-8.12.76.7 seems to work good. Just added it to the overlay.

Fitzcarraldo · Post by **Fitzcarraldo** » Mon Dec 04, 2017 1:55 pm

Thanks, Rion. I have just installed the new Version 8.12.76.7 using your ebuild, and Skype Test Call works fine with the new version. So it looks like Microsoft have fixed the audio problem they introduced in Version 8.12.76.2.

Skype Preview [Solved]

Skype Preview [Solved]

Re: Skype Preview

Working ebuild of skypeforlinux 8.11.0.4

Re: Working ebuild of skypeforlinux 8.11.0.4

Re: Working ebuild of skypeforlinux 8.11.0.4

Re: Working ebuild of skypeforlinux 8.11.0.4