Matrix Homeserver Sliding Sync

[ericdrgn]

Wondering if anyone has looked into adding Sliding Sync to cloudron at all. It'll be what matrix is moving to in the future. I found out via the latest element ios update that they made some breaking changes (no replies in notifications, no element in share menu) due to issues with encryption and they have no plans to fix it as Element X will eventually be rolled into the standard Element app and that works fine on that side.

All that to say eventually (looking like near future) the element android and ios apps will no longer work as the current Matrix homeserver we have in cloudron doesn't have sliding sync and the new apps don't work with it (you can try logging into Element X on ios and see the error I see saying sliding sync is needed).

Anyway there is this page explaining more: https://github.com/matrix-org/sliding-sync/blob/main/docs/Landing.md

but from the way it sounds without support for sliding sync the matrix homeserver as it is will no longer work. Found this video from a while back as well.

Sliding sync is on version 0.99.5 and the Element X app is no longer in testflight so it's looking like they will probably be forcing all of that pretty soon. And as mentioned for anyone used to using the current Element app you'll probably run into the same issues as me where the latest update hinders the app in a big way.

[girish]

Interesting, wasn't aware. I guess we can package this as part of the app itself.

[andreasdueren]

@girish Yes please, this would be great!

[lukas]

@girish any plans when this will happen?

[girish]

@lukas There is no ETA . AFAIK, the whole thing is still unstable. Even the routes are called unstable - https://github.com/matrix-org/sliding-sync/tree/main#same-hostname . If you just want to play with the idea, it looks like this can be launched in a separate VM or equivalent, not sure. I have to say there is not a whole lot of information other than that github page.

I also don't quite understand why it is totally separate from synapse. Should this not be just a part of synapse? Sync is like so basic... why would it be running in a separate domain, somewhere else. I think it will help us make some design decisions (for packaging) based on what the answers to these questions are.

[girish]

I also checked the Android Client "Element X". It has 1k+ downloads. I don't think this is meant for general use yet. For reference, the Element client has more than a million.

Happy to be corrected.

[infogulch]

Matrix just announced Matrix 2.0 with sliding sync:

https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/matrix-2-0/

Commentary including the Matrix project lead, Arathorn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37599510

[benborges]

I think it's clear that in the future the Sync won't be a proxy on another domain but rather integrated ?

[infogulch]

Yes I believe that's the long term plan, but it will take a while to get there.