Connection to Google Messages stops working (no messages are synced to the Matrix)

[wapsi]

Connection to Google Messages stops working after couple of days (Matrix => Google Messages is working OK, receiving of SMS/MMS messages from Google Messages to Matrix isn't).

The logs show only these events:

Jul 24 08:51:49 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:49+03:00 ERR Failed to decode incoming RPC message error="string field contains invalid UTF-8" component=libgm user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:49 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:49+03:00 ERR Failed to decode incoming RPC message error="string field contains invalid UTF-8" component=libgm user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:49 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:49+03:00 DBG Skipped DataEvent action=16 component=libgm remaining_skip_count=298 user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:49 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:49+03:00 ERR Failed to decode incoming RPC message error="string field contains invalid UTF-8" component=libgm user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:49 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:49+03:00 DBG Skipped DataEvent action=16 component=libgm remaining_skip_count=297 user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:50 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:50+03:00 DBG Got is bugle default response on connect bugle_default=true component=libgm user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:54 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:54+03:00 DBG Sent acks component=libgm message_ids=["xxx","yyy","zzz","www"] user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
Jul 24 08:51:58 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:58+03:00 DBG Starting handling of transaction content={"pdu":0,"unstable_edu":3,"unstable_to_device":0} transaction_id=123
Jul 24 08:51:58 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:58+03:00 DBG Finished dispatching events from transaction transaction_id=123
Jul 24 08:51:58 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:58+03:00 DBG Starting handling of transaction content={"pdu":0,"unstable_edu":1,"unstable_to_device":0} transaction_id=124
Jul 24 08:51:58 matrix start[3380257]: 2023-07-24T08:51:58+03:00 DBG Finished dispatching events from transaction transaction_id=124

The ping command returns:
Logged in as +xxx-yyy and active as primary browser

And disconnect + reconnects and set-active return this, but the connection is not really working (no messages are received from to Matrix from Google Messages running on my Android phone):

disconnect
Successfully disconnected. Use the reconnect command to reconnect.

reconnect
Started connecting to Google Messages

set-active
Set bridge as active session

Restarting of the bridge does not fix the issue either.

The only way I've found out to fix the situation, is logout from Google Messages and then login again (by using the QR code). After that all the missed SMS/MMS messages will be synchronized to Matrix.

Verified the issue with mautrix-gmessages pulled from Github on 2023-07-20 and 2023-07-24.

[wapsi]

I noticed that there are couple of these events as well:

2023-07-24T15:49:26+03:00 WRN Checking bugle default on connect is taking long component=libgm user_id=@xxx:foo.bar
2023-07-24T15:49:36+03:00 WRN Ditto ping is taking long, phone may be offline component=libgm listen_id=1 user_id=@xxx:foo.bar

Don't know, if they are related to this?

[meyerrj]

Not sure if it's related, but since I used this bridge, it seems Google may be treating the network activity as possible abuse traffic.

I received a forwarded email from my IPv6 tunnel provider that identified the docker image as a source.

We are seeing automated scraping of Google Web Search from a large
number of your IPs/VMs. Automated scraping violates our /robots.txt
file and also our Terms of Service. We request that you enforce your
Acceptable Use Policy against these customers.

To allow you to identify the customers, we are providing a sample of
your IPs they used today (Source field), as well as the most common
destination (Google) IP and port and a timestamp of a recent request
(in UTC) to aid in your identification. Note that this list is not
intended to be exhaustive, and we request that you terminate all of
their IPs/VMs, not just those on this list (which may be truncated to
keep the email short).

I communicated back to my provider about my use of this, and that I don't believe it should be considered web scraping. They've agreed that it seems to be a false positive report, but I have continued to see google services being restricted through all sorts of multiple captcha checks.

I've since disabled the bridge to see if things recover on my network side, but figured I should share this.