Flatpak apps cannot prompt for the file manager on Fedora GNOME templates

User Support
1

I am noticing a very strange issue where the Flatpak build of Mullvad Browser and Celluloid cannot seem to open any file manager (be it Nautilus or Thunar) to prompt for files/directories on Fedora GNOME templates.

This behavior is not reproducible with:

  • An actual Fedora system
  • Upstream’s Mullvad Browser on Fedora templates
  • The Debian GNOME Template

This behavior is reproducible with both the Fedora 39 and 40 GNOME templates.

It is very unlikely that this is caused by the Flatpak apps. Rather, I suspect that some important dependencies are missing from Qubes’s Fedora templates, or that there is a misconfiguration somewhere. I have not been able to find what the root cause is, so I’d greatly appreciate your help :sweat_smile:

2

Maybe it’s some issue with selinux configuration.
Will flatpak prompt for files/directories on Fedora GNOME if you disable selinux with sudo setenforce 0?
Did you try XFCE template fedora-39-xfce? Maybe it’s an issue with GNOME specifically?

3

Maybe it’s some issue with selinux configuration.

I don’t see how it can possibly be selinux, because desktop user apps (including Flatpak apps) run in the unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t context. I did confirm this with sudo ps auxZ.

setenforce 0 did not fix it.

Did you try XFCE template fedora-39-xfce? Maybe it’s an issue with GNOME specifically?

I will try it in a bit. I really want to avoid XFCE if I can help it though :cry:

4

You need to install xdg-desktop-portal-gtk

5

xdg-desktop-portal-gtk is already in the templates so that can’t be the problem either :sweat_smile:

6

try the gnome variant of the portal maybe?

7

The templates already include xdg-desktop-portal, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, and xdg-desktop-portal-gnome, so…

1 Like
8

Mullvad browser flatpak version seems clunky :confused:

Someone had an issue where the file manager was the one of the host: MB keeping track of recent opened files? · Issue #189 · mullvad/mullvad-browser · GitHub in that thread it’s mentioned they don’t officially support flatpak so it’s a third party who handle the flatpak packaging.

9

Yeah, but it cannot be the Flatpak Mullvad Browser causing this issue because:

  • The Flatpak Mullvad Browser works fine on a Fedora install
  • The Flatpak Mullvad Browser works fine on the Debian templates
  • Celluloid Flatpak exhibits the same behavior

So it is most likely something wrong with the Fedora templates and not the Flatpak Mullvad Browser.

1 Like