Comment 23 for bug 1920836

Ultimately if we decide to go with #2 here's a patch that I think would limit both the time cost of a remote uRL query and the noisy logging:

--- /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/gtk/utils.py 2021-06-10 23:20:22.000000000 -0600
+++ /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/gtk/utils.py.new 2021-07-14 15:32:54.559693094 -0600
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 gi.require_version("Gtk", "3.0")
 from gi.repository import Gio, Gtk
 import json
+import os
 import subprocess

 import logging
@@ -76,23 +77,12 @@
 def get_ua_status():
     """Return a dict of all UA status information or empty dict on error."""
     # status.json will exist on any attached system or any unattached system
- # which has already run `ua status`. Calling ua status directly on
- # network disconnected machines will raise a TimeoutException trying to
- # access contracts.canonical.com/v1/resources.
- try:
- # Success writes UA_STATUS_JSON
- result = subprocess.run(['ua', 'status', '--format=json'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
- except Exception as e:
- print("Failed to call ubuntu advantage client:\n%s" % e)
+ # which has already run `sudo ua status`.
+ if not os.path.exists(UA_STATUS_JSON):
         return {}
- if result.returncode != 0:
- print("Ubuntu advantage client returned code %d" % result.returncode)
- return {}
-
     try:
         status_file = open(UA_STATUS_JSON, "r")
     except Exception as e:
- print("No ua status file written:\n%s" % e)
         return {}

     with status_file as stream: