CentOS

My buddy had a problem that when he ran yum update it updated his Skype to 8.51.x.y, and suddenly when he rebooted his machine, he could no longer get Skype to run.

I *THINK* there was a command -- could be WRONG -- that could list ALL the versions of Skype you could re-install but I could no longer find it. The command yum list skypeforlinux --enablerepo=skype\* --showdupli --noplugins only seems to list the current version of skypeforlinux but not older versions from which to choose.

We sort of kludged our way by using the yum downgrade skypeforlinux several times until he came across 8.50.x.y, and then it worked once again. We *suspect* that like kmod-nvidia, there *might* be a tie-in to the kernel for RHEL 7.7, and somehow the Skypeforlinux ver 8.51.x.y.is supported in RHEL (CentOS -soon) 7.7, but not 7.6. It would be nice if we could have printed out a list of ALL the current as well as past versions of Skypeforlinux, and then simply run some type rpm command to install an older version of Skypeforlinux, rather than kludging our way backwards one step at a time using the downgrade command.

As for me... Skypeforlinux is the ONE program/utility that has given me problems that has messed with my webcam. I'm still using 8.11.0.4 -- still back in the the Jurassic, but it WORKS!!! At some point I know I will *have* to update it, but I fear I'll then have NO Skype at all, or spend 3-4 days trying to get either video but no audio, or audio but no video, but not both. I have yet to figure out HOW to back up just this ONE program / utility that I know WORKS and I fear if I "upgrade" it will be a one way trip.

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Read the log in ~/.config/skypeforlinux/ and it tells you that one of its files is not marked as suid and needs to be. I do not know if it is safe to do so nor do I know why MS didn't have the package mark it as such (it could have).

After a lot of searching while I did NOT find a command that would output the recently supported versions of Skypeforlinux I DID find this:

https://www.ubuntuupdates.org/ppa/skypeforlinux

In that there is this list:

Most recent updates in SkypeForLinux PPA (Stable)
Date Package Version
2019-08-28 09:09:30 UTC skypeforlinux 8.51.0.92
2019-08-19 09:09:03 UTC skypeforlinux 8.51.0.86
2019-08-12 11:08:43 UTC skypeforlinux 8.51.0.72
2019-07-22 11:08:17 UTC skypeforlinux 8.50.0.38
2019-07-08 10:14:33 UTC skypeforlinux 8.49.0.49


While this list is for Ubuntu, I would assume that the same Skypeforlinux list would apply only using the CentOS yum update methodology.

Having found this list I had my buddy go back and test them all. He hit a brick wall starting at 8.51.x.y. He is currently using the 8.50.0.38 release.

A little prowling uncovered the entire list:

PPA packages are displayed on an yellow background.
Updated on Package name Release Repository Level New Version

08-28 09:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.51.0.92
08-19 09:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.51.0.86
08-12 11:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.51.0.72
=================================================================
07-22 11:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.50.0.38
07-08 10:14 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.49.0.49
06-27 09:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.48.0.51
06-11 11:07 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.47.0.59
05-29 16:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.46.0.60
05-14 09:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.45.0.41
05-02 12:10 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.44.0.40
11-13 21:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.34.0.78
10-24 20:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.33.0.41
10-11 20:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.32.0.44
09-26 20:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.31.0.92
09-11 20:07 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.30.0.50
08-29 09:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.29.0.50
08-14 06:07 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.28.0.41
08-03 17:10 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.27.0.85
07-20 11:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.26.0.70
07-03 09:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.25.0.5
06-20 10:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.24.0.2
05-22 09:10 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.22.0.2
04-27 18:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.20.0.9
03-20 13:07 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.18.0.6
03-06 09:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.17.0.2
02-25 02:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.16.0.4
02-06 11:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.15.0.4
01-29 11:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.14.0.10
01-09 14:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.13.0.2
11-22 09:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.11.0.4
=================================================================
11-07 13:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.10.0.4
10-30 12:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 8.9.0.1
=================================================================
09-22 16:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 5.5.0.1
07-18 13:09 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 5.4.0.1
05-31 11:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 5.3.0.1
05-11 13:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 5.2.0.1
04-04 12:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 5.1.0.1
03-01 10:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 5.0.0.5
02-02 10:08 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 1.17.0.1
01-16 13:07 UTC skypeforlinux stable main base 1.16.0.1

Only the last 5 releases seem to be current (available) though others may be as well. I have drawn lines ( ====== ) through major turning points. 5.5.0.1 was where Skypeforlinus changed. 8.9.0.1 -- 8.10.0.4 were the "broken versions, then starting 8.11.0.4 -- 8.50.0.38 *seems* to be working range for CentOS 7 up to 7.6, though various versions in that series have played havoc with some webcams, others have worked perfectly well.

A final note: Skypeforlinux 8.51.x.y has proved problematic to my buddy -- ie he can't even get the thing to start let alone attempt to login -- the population is exactly 1. If you likewise are having problems with the 8.51 series -- or not -- please post as it may, or may not point to a problem. It will also be interesting to see if the problem -- if one exists -- persists after the release of CentOS 7.7, and in CentOS 8.0 -- whenever that will be. I also suspect that the "current" releases is going to be a rolling one limited to the 5 most recent ones. IF you are on version 8.50.0.38 and it works, and 8.51.x.y does NOT, consider moving skype-stable.repo OUT of /etc/yum.repos.d to a backup location and remove or modify so when you run yum update it does NOT update skype to some version that does not work. Once 8.50.0.38 fall off the tree, you may have a hard time finding a copy to re-install.

Hope this helps.

TrevorH wrote: ↑

2019/09/01 10:20:16

Read the log in ~/.config/skypeforlinux/ and it tells you that one of its files is not marked as suid and needs to be. I do not know if it is safe to do so nor do I know why MS didn't have the package mark it as such (it could have).

Thank you for posting this, changing the suid did fix the problem and I agree this is something MS could have taken care of. I have gone though three updates hoping each update came with a fix and had no idea there was a log file!