"The libp2p node is not started yet" error during discovery

[pgte]

Printed message during the tests:

assert.js:81
  throw new assert.AssertionError({
  ^
AssertionError: The libp2p node is not started yet
    at Node.dial (/Users/pedroteixeira/projects/ipfs/ipfs-level/node_modules/libp2p/src/index.js:239:5)
    at Node.self._libp2pNode.on (/Users/pedroteixeira/projects/ipfs/ipfs-level/node_modules/ipfs/src/core/components/libp2p.js:29:30)
    at emitOne (events.js:96:13)
    at Node.emit (events.js:188:7)
    at EventEmitter.discovery.on (/Users/pedroteixeira/projects/ipfs/ipfs-level/node_modules/libp2p/src/index.js:71:49)
    at emitOne (events.js:96:13)
    at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:188:7)
    at WebRTCStar._peerDiscovered (/Users/pedroteixeira/projects/ipfs/ipfs-level/node_modules/libp2p-webrtc-star/src/index.js:241:20)
    at Socket.Emitter.emit (/Users/pedroteixeira/projects/ipfs/ipfs-level/node_modules/libp2p-webrtc-star/node_modules/component-emitter/index.js:133:20)
    at Socket.onevent (/Users/pedroteixeira/projects/ipfs/ipfs-level/node_modules/libp2p-webrtc-star/node_modules/socket.io-client/lib/socket.js:267:10)

Looks like there may be a race condition here, since self.isOnline() returns true here, but the libp2p isOn() assertion fails here.

[pgte]

I think I found it:

js-ipfs/src/core/components/is-online.js

Line 5 in 860165c

return Boolean(self._bitswap && self._libp2pNode)

[pgte]

Also, and since this is internal, instead asserting the online status, it should queue the operations for when the node is online (like many database clients do).

In this case, the .dial() is being called because we discovered a peer. IMO, we should not ignore this event. Instead, we should queue until every networking component (bitswap and libp2p I guess) is considered to be online.

[pgte]

Can provide a PR, but would like some guidance before :)

[daviddias]

Interesting, that if was added specifically to avoid that race condition. I agree with you, all of these should be queued up. The queueing, however, should not let two dials to be unlocked at the same time, which will confuse libp2p-swarm until it becomes a state machine. Go for it and submit a PR with this detail in mind :)

[pgte]

ok, I'm onto this..

[daviddias]

@pgte did you get a fix for this?

[pgte]

@diasdavid not yet, working around this. Have a local fix, but still lacking some tests.
Will work on a PR for this next week..

[daviddias]

@pgte this is now fixed, right?

[pgte]

Yes, should be fixed.

[daviddias]

woot ! thanks @pgte :)