Start a GUI app automatically each 10 days

CoSoCo

4/30/24, 10:26 PM

My idea is to define a systemd user unit and start it with a timer unit. But I even fail to start the application manually with the unit in:
~/.config/systemd/user/signal-desktop.service :

[Unit]
Description=Start Signal Desktop GUI
Requires=default.target

[Service]
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gtk-launch signal-desktop

[Install]

When I start this unit manually, I see the icon of the application in the task bar, but after ~15 sec. it disappears again, and I never see the app window appear.

$ systemctl --user start signal-desktop.service
Job for signal-desktop.service failed because the service did not take the steps required by its unit configuration.
See "systemctl --user status signal-desktop.service" and "journalctl --user -xeu signal-desktop.service" for details.
$ systemctl --user stop signal-desktop.service
$ systemctl --user status signal-desktop.service
× signal-desktop.service - Start Signal Desktop GUI
     Loaded: loaded (/home/ich/.config/systemd/user/signal-desktop.service; static)
     Active: failed (Result: protocol) since Mon 2023-05-01 00:08:22 CEST; 22s ago
    Process: 93087 ExecStart=/usr/bin/gtk-launch signal-desktop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 93087 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 115ms

Mai 01 00:08:22 T500 systemd[1005]: Starting Start Signal Desktop GUI...
Mai 01 00:08:22 T500 systemd[1005]: signal-desktop.service: Failed with result 'protocol'.
Mai 01 00:08:22 T500 systemd[1005]: Failed to start Start Signal Desktop GUI.

What is meant by "Active: failed (Result: protocol)"?

An alternative may be using a cron job with anacron.

1 + 4

gui

systemd

waltinator

4/30/24, 11:42 PM

In any of these cases, it's not how the program is started, it's the environment variables in each environment. GUI applications use the `DISPLAY` environment variable to find the screen. `DISPLAY` isn't set in your other runtime environments. `echo "$DISPLAY"` in your GUI environment, and copy this value to your service, cron job, or whatever. Read `man xhost` to see how to allow other users to access your display.

CoSoCo

5/1/24, 11:41 AM

@waltinator With `Environment=DISPLAY=:0` I get the exact same result. Anyway I'm in the assumption, that `gtk-launch` is able to set all needed things for a GUI app. Thanks for you trial.

CoSoCo

5/1/24, 11:53 AM

@waltinator Additionally I don't understand, which "other user" could be meant, because it's me who starts the systemd unit, nobody else.

CoSoCo

5/1/24, 11:39 PM

I now found out, that I should set `Type=forking`.

Score:0

Ubuntu

CoSoCo

5/1/24, 11:53 PM

It works with:

~/.config/systemd/user/signal-desktop.service :

[Unit]
Description=Start Signal Desktop GUI
Requires=default.target

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gtk-launch signal-desktop

[Install]

~/.config/systemd/user/signal-desktop.timer :

[Unit]
Description=Timer for Signal Desktop GUI

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-3/10 05:00:00
Persistent=true
Unit=signal-desktop.service

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Then run :

systemctl --user enable signal-desktop.timer 
systemctl --user start signal-desktop.timer  # only needed, if the timer should start immediately, thus before next logoff/-in.

So my GUI app starts each 3rd, 13th and 23rd of a month at 05:00, or later, when the machine is woken up. Exactly each 10 days seems not possible, except someone has an alternative idea.

+ 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Start a GUI app automatically each 10 days

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