Qubes menu entry does not start application (onlyoffice, snap-installation)

Hello there,

In my appVM from Fedora-36 I followed the HowTo install snap, in order to install onlyoffice then. I managed to get the onlyoffice entry into the qubes menu, however clicking on it does not open the software.

Recreating the entry and experimenting with the fixing shortcuts did not help.

I can start the software from the appVM terminal with some warnings

[user@appVM ~]$ onlyoffice-desktopeditors
Warning: Schema “org.gnome.system.locale” has path “/system/locale/”.  Paths starting with “/apps/”, “/desktop/” or “/system/” are deprecated.
Warning: Schema “org.gnome.system.proxy” has path “/system/proxy/”.  Paths starting with “/apps/”, “/desktop/” or “/system/” are deprecated.
Warning: Schema “org.gnome.system.proxy.http” has path “/system/proxy/http/”.  Paths starting with “/apps/”, “/desktop/” or “/system/” are deprecated.
Warning: Schema “org.gnome.system.proxy.https” has path “/system/proxy/https/”.  Paths starting with “/apps/”, “/desktop/” or “/system/” are deprecated.
Warning: Schema “org.gnome.system.proxy.ftp” has path “/system/proxy/ftp/”.  Paths starting with “/apps/”, “/desktop/” or “/system/” are deprecated.
Warning: Schema “org.gnome.system.proxy.socks” has path “/system/proxy/socks/”.  Paths starting with “/apps/”, “/desktop/” or “/system/” are deprecated.

(DesktopEditors:1379): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 15:36:42.538: gdk_atom_intern: assertion 'atom_name != NULL' failed

(DesktopEditors:1379): Gdk-CRITICAL **: 15:36:42.538: gdk_atom_intern: assertion 'atom_name != NULL' failed

and it opens and runs just fine…

What else can go wrong with these shortcuts, resulting in not starting/opening the actual software? Or is the Gdk-CRITICAL connected with the issue?

Thanks for the help in advance, hope you can support my first steps in QubesOS :slight_smile:

clarinet

edit: snap link corrected

It looks like you installed an application into an AppVM.

Unfortunately, AppVMs, every time they start, copy everything except your home directory from the template. I don’t know about OnlyOffice but from what you’re saying it doesn’t install into your home directory. So what happens is, as soon as you shut the AppVM down, you lose all the changes you made to system directories (including this install). Starting it up again gets you a new copy of the system directories and this won’t have your OnlyOffice installation in it.

In general the rule is to install applications into templates, but then open an AppVM to run them. Your data (in your home directory) is associated with the AppVM; the applications are associated with the templateVM.

I just answered your other question about the cloud app elsewhere. If you don’t want this app to appear in all of your AppVMs, you need to do the same thing here as there: clone your template, install to the clone, then base your AppVM on the clone.

Yes it is true that onlyoffice is installed in the appVM, however that is the recommended procedure in the HowTo?

(I fixed my link in the first post now)

I assume the reason for this is that the snap packages in the appVM are updated automatically, without starting the template?

Ok, you’ve blown way past my rather limited expertise; I never even heard of a snap package before now, and certainly didn’t know that onlyoffice was one of them, or that they were “different” somehow.

I’ll bow out, and hopefully someone who can spell “snapp paqage” will step in

Problem persisted after updating to Fedora 38, I assume there is some kind of problem with snap setting up the start menu entry.

I worked out a workaround solution by a manual menu entry, as described in FAQ app menu shortcut troubleshooting:

I created a shortcut for a single app qube by adding a new .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications in dom0. The relevant line

Exec=qvm-run -a WUR 'onlyoffice-desktopeditors'

simply starts the program by hidden commandline.

Then I referred to this .desktop file in ~/.config/menus/applications-merged/-vm.menu file to make the entry visible in the menu.