archlinux installation docs are grossly outdated

Description

1. Install matrix via pip on linux
2. Install element client on home machine
3. Try to create an account via elements UI Then the server response the following to the client:

status_code: 500, {"errcode":"M_UNKNOWN","error":"Internal server error"}

Looking at the error it seems the code attempts to run decode() on a str object…

Homeserver

myurl.com

Synapse Version

1.63.1

Installation Method

pip (from PyPI)

Platform

Rocky Linux 9

Relevant log output

2022-07-22 12:21:01,577 - synapse.http.server - 183 - ERROR - POST-78 - Failed handle request via 'RegisterRestServlet': <XForwardedForRequest at 0x7f5f586d7430 method='POST' uri='/_matrix/client/r0/register' clientproto='HTTP/1.0' site='8008'>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/twisted/internet/defer.py", line 1660, in _inlineCallbacks
    result = current_context.run(gen.send, result)
StopIteration: True

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/rest/client/register.py", line 583, in on_POST
    auth_result, params, session_id = await self.auth_handler.check_ui_auth(
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/handlers/auth.py", line 551, in check_ui_auth
    raise InteractiveAuthIncompleteError(
synapse.api.errors.InteractiveAuthIncompleteError: Interactive auth not yet complete

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/http/server.py", line 366, in _async_render_wrapper
    callback_return = await self._async_render(request)
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/http/server.py", line 572, in _async_render
    callback_return = await raw_callback_return
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/rest/client/_base.py", line 99, in wrapped
    return await orig(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/rest/client/register.py", line 600, in on_POST
    password_hash = await self.auth_handler.hash(password)
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/twisted/python/threadpool.py", line 244, in inContext
    result = inContext.theWork()  # type: ignore[attr-defined]
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/twisted/python/threadpool.py", line 260, in <lambda>
    inContext.theWork = lambda: context.call(  # type: ignore[attr-defined]
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/twisted/python/context.py", line 117, in callWithContext
    return self.currentContext().callWithContext(ctx, func, *args, **kw)
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/twisted/python/context.py", line 82, in callWithContext
    return func(*args, **kw)
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/logging/context.py", line 970, in g
    return f(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/root/synapse/venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/synapse/handlers/auth.py", line 1566, in _do_hash
    ).decode("ascii")
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'decode'

Anything else that would be useful to know?

Registrations have worked fine and I have not made any changes on my end and now they stopped working, so i would assume error in synapse. I had captcha enabled but already tested with it disabled (unsafe registrations enabled) and the error persists.

[babolivier]

could you kindly suggest a way to recreate the signing key?

From your virtual environment:

python -m synapse.app.homeserver -c /path/to/homeserver.yaml --generate-keys

[sla-te]

That is interesting and definitely worth looking into, thanks for getting to the bottom of it and reporting back!

Sure thing, if it was me id tbh just add a tiny wrapper around that function that makes sure either always bytes or always string is returned and call that one from all other places… Then this should be under control xD… And a test would sure not hurt to include as its a quite central logical function, because its responsible for hashing passwords, without it login/register = dead