Can you help me troubleshoot a Linux issue?

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

Can you help me troubleshoot a Linux issue?

Have you experienced issues with the Typesetter editor for Typst (or other Flatpak appplications) failing to launch from the desktop menu after logging out and back in? The context is this issue I have on Linux Mint Cinnamon.

https://codeberg.org/haydn/typesetter/issues/35

#flatpak #LinutMint #linux #AskFedi

[cos@fosstodon.org]

@amoroso try launching it from command line to see any error messages it might output.

https://justingarrison.com/blog/2023-03-19-launch-flatpak-app/

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@amoroso it's often a missing library when things like that happen. if you run it from a shell prompt, you might see some messages about why it's not running.

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@cos Thanks, I tried it as reported in the linked issue.

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@burnitdown Thanks, in the linked issue I also reported my command line launch attempts.

[them@mastodon.fsinf.at]

@amoroso just a shot in the dark as means to get more info, have you tried adding a new user (such that everything about the users environment is created with defaults) and see if it happens also if you use that user account instead?

@thomasmarangoni you were/are a Linux Mint (or was this Manjaro?) & flatpak User, any ideas?

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@them An interesting lead, thanks.

@thomasmarangoni

[thomasmarangoni@fosstodon.org]

@amoroso @them

Last time i used mint, flatpak didn't exist. But i use flatpak regularly.

Do you get any additional information if you start the application from the command line instead of the desktop menu?

Flatpaks often use DBUS and similar systems, that might not get correctly setup, after relogging in mint.

And as far as I know, mint is still using X11, right?

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@thomasmarangoni Yes, Mint is still using X11 by default. I tried starting the application from the command line but, as reported in the linked issue, the additional information doesn't ring any bells.

@them

[thomasmarangoni@fosstodon.org]

@amoroso @them

Ah, forgot to look at the issue. I also don't see any strange things at first glance. Sometimes flatpaks are strange and hard to debug.

I can try to spin a VM at night and look if the problem also happens on a fresh install.

[grawity@social.treehouse.systems]

@amoroso 'DBusActivatable' means gnome will try to run it via dbus-daemon (the user-level one, not the system-wide one) and not directly, i.e. it's actually closer to one of the following:

1) gapplication launch net.trowell.typesetter
2) gdbus call -e -d net.trowell.typesetter -o /net/trowell/typesetter -m org.freedesktop.Application.Activate {}

which will cause dbus-daemon to run the process as configured in /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/dbus-1/services/net.trowell.typesetter.service (if it's not yet running), and then deliver it a D-Bus message saying "open a new window".

since it's really started as a child of dbus-daemon (or a child of systemd --user, depending on distribution) it will inherit different environment, which might have stale envvars from the previous session (though the new session ought to have overridden them...), so compare the "first" and "second" session environment from:

systemctl --user show-environment | sort

and also try to run the 'flatpak run' command as a child of systemd, i.e. first do:

systemd-run --user --shell

...and then the whole 'flatpak run net.trowell.typesetter' within that nested shell.

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@grawity Thanks you very much for the insight, I'll try.