• Strange error messages in journal

    From Grimble@2:250/1 to All on Sat Mar 22 15:00:08 2025
    My journal contains several error messages from plasmashell
    socket_manager.cc in the form:
    Failed to resolve address for
    ec2-52-23-111-175.compute-1.amazonaws.com., errorcode: -105
    Failed to resolve address for aa.online-metrix.net., errorcode: -105
    Failed to resolve address for eu-aa.online-metrix.net., errorcode: -105

    I don't recognise any of these URLs and I don't know why plasmashell
    should be trying to contact them. Should I be worried?

    --
    Grimble
    Machine 'Haydn' running Plasma 5.27.10 on 6.6.79-desktop-1.mga9 kernel.
    Mageia release 9 (Official) for x86_64


    --- MBSE BBS v1.1.0 (Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (2:250/1@fidonet)
  • From David W. Hodgins@2:250/1 to All on Sat Mar 22 19:03:26 2025
    On Sat, 22 Mar 2025 11:00:08 -0400, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
    My journal contains several error messages from plasmashell
    socket_manager.cc in the form:
    Failed to resolve address for
    ec2-52-23-111-175.compute-1.amazonaws.com., errorcode: -105
    Failed to resolve address for aa.online-metrix.net., errorcode: -105
    Failed to resolve address for eu-aa.online-metrix.net., errorcode: -105

    I don't recognise any of these URLs and I don't know why plasmashell
    should be trying to contact them. Should I be worried?

    amazonaws is referenced in a number of packages on my system such as yt-dlp, so it being
    used is not surprising

    The lookup failing just indicates plasma is starting before the network dns has been setup.

    Blocking amazonaws.com would break usage of many commonly used web sites and may
    break some applications that rely on the amazon cloud services.

    online-metrix is not found in (as root) " grep -ir online-metrix /usr/* ".

    I do find it in my home directory in various files used by chromium. One of them ...
    '/home/dave/.config/chromium/Default/Local Extension Settings/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp/000219.log' has ...

    "h-microsoft.online-metrix.net":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"cookieblock","nextUpdateTime":0,"userAction":""},"h-t.co":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"allow","nextUpdateTime":0,"userAction":""},"h-tdcanada.online-metrix.net":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"","nextUpdateTime":1.742888644492e+12,"userAction":""},"h-walmart.online-metrix.net":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"cookieblock","nextUpdateTime":0,"userAction":""},"h.online-metrix.net":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"","nextUpdateTime":1.742917753002e+12,"userAction":""},"h12-media.com":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"block","nextUpdateTime":0,"userAction":""},"h365.games":{"dnt":false,"heuristicAction":"allow","nextUpdateTime":0,"userAction":""},"h64.online-metrix.net"

    So it looks like it's related to some of the websites I've visited with chromium.

    From what I can gather, it's used to gather usage information so advertisers know how many
    visits a site gets, and from where. You could probably block anything going to or from
    online-metrix.net, but test it with sites you use regularly to see if that blocking breaks using
    those sites.

    Regards, Dave Hodgins

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    * Origin: A noiseless patient Spider (2:250/1@fidonet)