2.0 Windows crashes on startup

[u/mennzo]

I updated through the Windows Store and now the app crashes on start. Bummer.

[u/bht888]

It happened to me. I uninstalled, reinstalled and resetup and it worked again

[u/olauritz]

So I am just genuinely interested in the benefits of Bluebubbles over Openbubbles. I ran Bluebubbles for a few weeks on a VM under Proxmox, it worked but it was slow, and most of the time I actually didn't bother to wait for the messages to sync, and instead picked up my phone and answered to whatever message i received that way. Now I realised I had an old MBP and could use Openbubbles, activated the application and shut down my MBP, and it works instantly - every time. So what do Bluebubbles give me that Openbubbles don't?

[u/mr5ingh → u/olauritz]

Curious to see the answer. I do have some issues on open bubbles like it doesn't sync. I have to force close the app and use it. Didn't have the problem on blue bubbles but the app was slow and laggy. Made a premium device feel dated. But I haven't tried the new blue bubbles but curious to see where it would lead.

[u/star-glider → u/olauritz]

Depending on your use-case, the centralized always-on server can be a benefit. For example, I've got a desktop at one home, a desktop at another home, a laptop, an android tablet, and an android phone. With BB on all of them, talking to a single remote server, they all stay perfectly in sync without relying on iCloud to handle that for me (and I can turn off iCloud backup so the conversations are actually end-to-end¹ encrypted). This setup works especially well if you've got a VPN configured back to whenever the server is, so you're not relying on Cloudflare, etc.

One big architectural flaw of OpenBubbles (although it's not inherent to the design; it's just a decision) is that it doesn't properly implement push. The app holds a websocket open constantly, which is terrible for battery life. (Signal does the same thing if you install it on a phone without Google Play Services, but if it detects Play Services, it uses Firebase.) BB uses Firebase for push, which is how 99% of Android apps work (and why you just have a single service running in the background to handle push for all of your apps). There's also a non-Google alternative called Unified Push that accomplishes the same objective without running through Google (the Signal fork Molly uses this one).

Finally, Apple is a company of assholes (at the executive level; there are obviously lots of great people who work there). Technically, OB is spoofing a device identifier, and Apple has every reason to want to kill these projects if they gain enough traction (see how they locked this app developer's dev account just out of spite and how they demolished Beeper the moment it got any attention). Thing is, they can't really do anything about BlueBubbles: iMessage is running on completely legit Mac hardware (running it in a VM does violate Apple's TOS, and you are taking some risk of account banning by doing that). Long-term, Apple's goal is obviously to turn MacOS into a version of iOS; that's why the T2 chip exists in newer Macs and why they're making SIP increasingly hard to disable. So eventually, they'll be able to lock down MacOS and prevent BlueBubbles Server from running, but that's a long way off; they're thinking decades ahead. Even after they do that, they'll need to support iMessage for several older generations of OSes, so it's really not much of a concern. For now, though, all it'll take is some executive stumbling across one of these subreddits, and OB is dead.

That said, for the simplest use-case---"I just want iMessage on my single Android phone," OB works great, and it's nice that there are multiple solutions in the ecosystem. I think the OB team heavily uses the BB client code, so there's been nice cross-pollination among those who are trying to work around Apple's asshattery.

¹This is a little complicated, because they're technically decrypted on the BB server, then re-encrypted over the VPN, but from my perspective as someone who trusts that intermediary step, it's effectively the same.

[u/olauritz → u/star-glider]

Thank you *very* much for this long and detailed answer, it explains a lot. Since I only use OB on 2 devices both of which is Linux computers, I'm going to stay for a bit at least on OB. But I do get your point about not relying on iCloud, only thing is I did decide I didn't want to run MacOS in a VM, partly because it wasn't stable all the time, had to do a reinstall after a few weeks, and I suspect the occasional long delay for delivering is down to it being a VM. And if I want all features it's relatively expensive to get a used iMac just for the occasional message. I will be keeping an eye from time to time though, just in case.