[SOLVED] Freepbx modules are not updated

FreePBX Installation / Upgrade
1

Hi! All.

I installed FreePBX from the SNG7-PBX-64bit-1904 (v14) distribution on a VMWare ESXi virtual machine. After registration and initial setup, I tried updating the FreePBX modules, but the update does not occur. If I update from the GUI, I see the message: “Cannot connect to online repository (s) (mirror freepbx org). Online modules are not available.” If I update from the command line, I see only a third-party module:
fwconsole ma showupgrades
No repos specified, using: [standard, extended, commercial, unsupported] from last GUI settings

Update available:

  • ---------------------- + ------------------ + ------- -------- +
    | Module | Local version | Online Version |
  • ---------------------- + ------------------ + ------- -------- +
    | informunity_bitrix24 | 14.1.1.11 | 14.1.2.0 |
  • ---------------------- + ------------------ + ------- -------- +

I made 3 similar installations at the same time, and in 2 cases the update is normal.
The update cannot fail because of the firewall configuration, because I equally configured the firewall in all three cases and to satisfy my paranoia I tried to update with the firewall disabled.

In addition, I ran tcpdump at the same time as trying to update FreePBX modules. The output of tcpdump showed that the exchange of packets between mirror freepbx org and my host with freepbx occurs:

15:29:22.378351 IP 78.140.232.139.42816 > 199.102.239.8.443: Flags [S], seq 134930230, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 151661622 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
15:29:22.545159 IP 199.102.239.8.443 > 78.140.232.139.42816: Flags [S.], seq 2248300787, ack 134930231, win 28960, options [mss 1380,sackOK,TS val 1344078780 ecr 151661622,nop,wscale 7], length 0
15:29:22.545223 IP 78.140.232.139.42816 > 199.102.239.8.443: Flags [.], ack 1, win 229, options [nop,nop,TS val 151661789 ecr 1344078780], length 0
15:29:22.545626 IP 78.140.232.139.42816 > 199.102.239.8.443: Flags [P.], seq 1:199, ack 1, win 229, options [nop,nop,TS val 151661789 ecr 1344078780], length 198
15:29:22.725807 IP 199.102.239.8.443 > 78.140.232.139.42816: Flags [.], seq 1:1369, ack 199, win 235, options [nop,nop,TS val 1344078952 ecr 151661789], length 1368
15:29:22.725872 IP 78.140.232.139.42816 > 199.102.239.8.443: Flags [.], ack 1369, win 251, options [nop,nop,TS val 151661969 ecr 1344078952], length 0
15:29:22.725884 IP 199.102.239.8.443 > 78.140.232.139.42816: Flags [.], seq 1369:2737, ack 199, win 235, options [nop,nop,TS val 1344078952 ecr 151661789], length 1368
15:29:22.725901 IP 78.140.232.139.42816 > 199.102.239.8.443: Flags [.], ack 2737, win 274, options [nop,nop,TS val 151661970 ecr 1344078952], length 0
15:29:22.725908 IP 199.102.239.8.443 > 78.140.232.139.42816: Flags [.], seq 2737:4105, ack 199, win 235, options [nop,nop,TS val 1344078952 ecr 151661789], length 1368
etc.

My installation of FreePBX is registered on the Sangoma portal and has an Internet address, it is not behind NAT.

How do I get my freepbx to update modules? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

2

Yeah, you have v15 so you’ll need to update all your modules from the Edge repo.

3

This is not so. I recently installed the 1910 ISO and ran fwconsole ma upgradeall immediately after logging in and was presented with a large set of module updates. It appears that much of the Edge repo has been promoted to Stable as of fairly recently.

4

I beg forgiveness, I was mistaken. I installed FreePBX from the SNG7-PBX-64bit-1904 distribution.
The version of my FreePBX installation is 14.0.13.12.

5

That module is not published by Sangoma, where did it come from. I would take immediate steps to get rid of it.

6

It’s a third party module from Bitrix24. Not sure why they would need to remove it. The OP even said “The only thing listed in the 3rd party module”. But then again, the OP is also getting an error about not being able to connect to the repos.

@euxx Your DNS is setup properly, correct?

1 Like
7

This could be related to this post.

Can’t make online update with installed module “Informunty bitrix24”

https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-20622

1 Like
8

This module does not pose a problem. This was created by a third-party developer and serves to integrate with Bitrix24 CRM. I have been using this module for over a year on several FreePBX installations.

9

Yes, I have DNS configured correctly. I showed the output of tcpdump - freepbx accesses the mirror freepbx org and gets the answers.
In addition, I have the same DNS for 2 other fresh installations (their same distribution) on which the modules are updated.

10

The bitrix24 third party module is a CRM module that forcibly uninstalls the Sangomacrm module. It does not follow the normal way to uninstall modules or it would also uninstall dependencies. This caused support nightmares because zulu relies on Sangoma crm. When Sangoma crm was forcibly uninstalled but Zulu was still installed the freepbx gui crashed and so did zulu. We saw this many times in support.

It’s one thing to develop a third party module. There are many people doing that. It’s a whole other thing going around and forcibly uninstalling other modules without user consent. The developers should have checked to make sure systems would still be stable by doing that. Additionally as far as I am aware there is no reason to uninstall sangomacrm when bitrix24 is installed. If it really does conflict this module should say so during installation. However the developers thought differently and decided to forcibly uninstall another module without seeing how it would affect user systems. At one point there was an issue in Sangoma support about this daily. Imagine you installing a program on your computer and it forcibly uninstalls something else without your knowledge.

So while you don’t think it poses a problem it does pose a severe problem to the stability of freepbx. During installation the module can check for the existence of other modules and then return false in the installation code with a message informing the user that there is a conflict. Subverting the users intentions instead is a very bad precedence.

2 Likes
11

A bold claim. One which conflicts with the module’s creators. They’ve spammed the issue tracker with a bunch of tickets (such as the one one linked above) with:

We found that on some systems … the module blocks online updates.

1 Like
12

Thank you very much for the link provided.
Indeed, there was a problem in the inform_unity module.
I installed the updated inform_unity module and the problem was resolved.

1 Like
13

I am glad it worked :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
14

I have reason to say this because I had more than a year of experience operating this module with several FreePBX installations. I can’t say that there were no problems at all, but the support works very well. They really solve the problems that arise quickly. Now it helped me update their module.
At the beginning of my practice with this module, it clashed with the CoS module. They decided it in 2 days.

15

I completely agree with you. This is very bad if the module is removed without demand and disrupts the operation of other modules. If so, then this is a big flaw of the developers of the informunity_bitrix24 module. But their support is responsive. They need to write about it. I will do it.
The documentation for installing and configuring the module honestly says that this module is not compatible with the sangomacrm module.
Therefore, whenever I set informunity_bitrix24, I made sure that there was no sangomacrm in the system.
The fact is that in our CRM market (in Russia) bitrix24 takes a place, a similar place for windows on desktop computers. And the informunity_bitrix24 module is the best for integrating bitrix24 with freePBX. Developers rush to the market, and could not finish some things. But they are trying.

16

It’s as simple as adding a notice saying it conflicts during install instead of just uninstalling Sangomacrm. Software that does something the user does not expect is usually called malicious. I’m sure they will fix it but I wouldn’t trust this module, who knows what else it is doing to your system without your knowledge.

Fool me once, shame on you;
Fool me twice, shame on me.

1 Like
17

I repeat once again that I fully share your point of view.

18

In fairness, it should be noted that not “the module blocks online updates”, but the presence in the modules directory of a directory called informunity_bitrix24 is the reason for blocking online updates. They really handled this problem 3 times, but they were not answered about the reason for the ban.
Only after reading this thread, they guessed that the reason was in incorrect behavior in some cases of the old version of their module.

19

Hi all,

We are the developers of the module discussed here that connects Bitrix24 and FreePBX. On Bitrix24 side, the app has more than 8000 installations. By that, we popularize FreePBX and help users sort out their business tasks.

We’ve been developing this app for 2 years and since all that time we’ve been facing a lot of different issues including incompatibility with some other modules. For instance, we found a bug in timeconditions module and offered our pull request to fix the issue.

Our initial goal was to create the most convenient connector of Asterisk and Bitrix24 and based on the feedback from a number of our clients we think we managed to create one. We chose FreePBX as with it the user gets comfy interface for installation and configuration of the app. For that purpose, we learned how to develop on FreePBX and are improving our skills every day.

We do find that unacceptable to delete the data of other modules. However, in some early versions, our code deactivated sangomacrm in the installation process to avoid conflict reported by a number of users in Russia. We were guided by the following logic: users of Bitrix24 were not supposed to use another module like sangomacrm altogether at once as the two products are mutually exclusive in terms of functionality. Later on, we fixed this in July 2019 release, earlier than we knew that the informunity_bitrix24 module was blocked.

Since we have launched our product we’ve been supporting the users in three languages: English, Spanish, and Russian. We are open to discussions and are always ready to fix critical issues asap. We rely on feedback from users and the vendor to be able to improve the module. At the same time, we haven’t realized the reasons for blocking until yesterday when we saw your answers in this topic.
We offer our apologies for creating several similar issues in bug tracker. We are new to the community and were just trying to get any feedback from the vendor.

A wise person is made, not born.

Sincerely,
InformUnity team.

20

By that, do you mean “populate FreePBX” as in with data. Because to claim that you have popularized FreePBX is rather bold and I would consider erroneous. Sure your app has 8000 installs but is that just FreePBX or across all the platforms you support? Either way, FreePBX has millions of installs. I don’t think this module or Bitrix24 is responsible for that popularity.