Bug#1035469: libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37: After upgrading to libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37_2.40.1-1~deb11u1, Gnome Evolution does not load the body content of emails.

[Jim P.]

Package: libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37
Version: 2.40.1-1~deb11u1
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: j...@k4vqc.com

Dear Maintainer,

* What led up to the situation?

A: The updates to libjavascriptcoregtk-4.0-18 libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37

* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
ineffective)?

A: I downgraded to previous versions of libwebkit:

apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37=2.38.5-1~deb11u1 libjavascriptcoregtk-4.0-18=2.38.5-1~deb11u1

* What was the outcome of this action?

A: Downgrading to the previous release resolves the problem with Gnome Evolution, BUT it leaves
the user with an unpatched version of WebKit.

* What outcome did you expect instead?

:)


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.7
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.10.0-22-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 depends on:
ii bubblewrap 0.4.1-3
ii gstreamer1.0-plugins-base 1.18.4-2
ii gstreamer1.0-plugins-good 1.18.4-2+deb11u1
ii libatk1.0-0 2.36.0-2
ii libatomic1 10.2.1-6
ii libc6 2.31-13+deb11u6
ii libcairo-gobject2 1.16.0-5
ii libcairo2 1.16.0-5
ii libenchant-2-2 2.2.15-1
ii libepoxy0 1.5.5-1
ii libfontconfig1 2.13.1-4.2
ii libfreetype6 2.10.4+dfsg-1+deb11u1
ii libgcc-s1 10.2.1-6
ii libgcrypt20 1.8.7-6
ii libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 2.42.2+dfsg-1+deb11u1
ii libglib2.0-0 2.66.8-1
ii libgpg-error0 1.38-2
ii libgstreamer-gl1.0-0 1.18.4-2
ii libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0 1.18.4-2
ii libgstreamer1.0-0 1.18.4-2.1
ii libgtk-3-0 3.24.24-4+deb11u3
ii libharfbuzz-icu0 2.7.4-1
ii libharfbuzz0b 2.7.4-1
ii libhyphen0 2.8.8-7
ii libicu67 67.1-7
ii libjavascriptcoregtk-4.0-18 2.40.1-1~deb11u1
ii libjpeg62-turbo 1:2.0.6-4
ii liblcms2-2 2.12~rc1-2
ii libmanette-0.2-0 0.2.5-1
ii libopenjp2-7 2.4.0-3
ii libpango-1.0-0 1.46.2-3
ii libpangocairo-1.0-0 1.46.2-3
ii libpng16-16 1.6.37-3
ii libseccomp2 2.5.1-1+deb11u1
ii libsecret-1-0 0.20.4-2
ii libsoup2.4-1 2.72.0-2
ii libsqlite3-0 3.34.1-3
ii libstdc++6 10.2.1-6
ii libsystemd0 247.3-7+deb11u2
ii libtasn1-6 4.16.0-2+deb11u1
ii libwayland-client0 1.18.0-2~exp1.1
ii libwayland-egl1 1.18.0-2~exp1.1
ii libwayland-server0 1.18.0-2~exp1.1
ii libwebp6 0.6.1-2.1
ii libwebpdemux2 0.6.1-2.1
ii libwoff1 1.0.2-1+b1
ii libwpe-1.0-1 1.10.0-2
ii libwpebackend-fdo-1.0-1 1.8.0-1
ii libx11-6 2:1.7.2-1
ii libxcomposite1 1:0.4.5-1
ii libxdamage1 1:1.1.5-2
ii libxml2 2.9.10+dfsg-6.7+deb11u4
ii libxrender1 1:0.9.10-1
ii libxslt1.1 1.1.34-4+deb11u1
ii libxt6 1:1.2.0-1
ii xdg-dbus-proxy 0.1.2-2
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.11.dfsg-2+deb11u2

Versions of packages libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 recommends:
ii gstreamer1.0-gl 1.18.4-2
ii gstreamer1.0-libav 1.18.4-3
ii gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad 1.18.4-3
ii libgl1-mesa-dri 20.3.5-1
ii xdg-desktop-portal-gtk 1.8.0-1

Versions of packages libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37 suggests:
ii gstreamer1.0-alsa 1.18.4-2

-- no debconf information

[Alberto Garcia]

On Wed, May 03, 2023 at 12:28:38PM -0400, Jim P. wrote:
> * What led up to the situation?
>
> A: The updates to libjavascriptcoregtk-4.0-18 libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37

Thanks for the report, we'll prepare an update asap.

Berto

[Jim Popovitch]

On Wed, 3 May 2023 18:42:35 +0200 Alberto Garcia <be...@igalia.com>

>
> Thanks for the report, we'll prepare an update asap.
>
> Berto
>

Best wishes! If you don't currently use Evolution and are looking for
a way to test this (without having to configure Evolution to
send/receive email), you can simply create an email in Evolution and
save it as a Draft, and then try to look at the Draft email in a Preview
Pane.

-Jim P.

[Alberto Garcia]

Control: forwarded -1 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=256266

On Wed, May 03, 2023 at 01:32:18PM -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> If you don't currently use Evolution and are looking for a way to
> test this

I can reproduce the problem just fine, thanks. I'm adding a link to
the upstream bug for reference.

As you probably noticed the problem is that the area where the body
should appear is now very narrow so although the document is there you
can barely read it.

Sorry for the mess!

Berto

[Alberto Garcia]

So what happens is that the Evolution in bullseye is using a
deprecated WebKit API that was removed in the 2.40.x branch (the
function remains but it's a no-op now). Reverting that change in
WebKit is unfortunately not an option.

This was fixed in Evolution upstream a while ago[1] so bookworm is not
affected. The patch was backported to at least Evolution 3.28.5[2] and
3.40.4[3]. The latter can be applied fine to our version (3.38.3) and
fixes the problem for me, I'm putting Milan Crha on Cc for comments
since the patch is not trivial.

I'm also attaching the debdiff for Evolution with this patch included.

The other alternative would be to switch back to WebKitGTK 2.38.x but
that branch is not likely to receive any further security updates.

Berto

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/2001
[2] https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/evolution/-/blob/c8s/evolution-3.28.5-frame-flattenning.patch
[3] https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/evolution/-/blob/c9s/evolution-3.40.4-frame-flattenning.patch

[Jim Popovitch]

Thank you very very much!