Score:4

Ubuntu

flatpak fails, seemingly entirely

Toby Eggitt

5/10/23, 3:33 AM

EDIT (Jan 11): I found "my" workaround (with apologies that it won't help others with the same problem).

The tar.gz distro of the software I want to run works fine, out of the box, on my old Ubuntu 16.04 system (which won't run flatpak either!). Since this is not software I expect to need very often, I'm going to run it there.

Many thanks to everyone who invested their time and energy in helping me with this.

I have a piece of software that I want to install that's distributed as a "flatpak". However, after installing the flatpak system in my Ubuntu Mate 20.04 system, it fails to load the package I want to use. I get this error:

$ flatpak install chirp-daily-20220103.flatpak 

Note that the directories 

'/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share'
'/home/simon/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share'

are not in the search path set by the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, so
applications installed by Flatpak may not appear on your desktop until the
session is restarted.


** (flatpak install:41527): WARNING **: 20:31:39.113: Error unregistering authentication agent: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name :1.235 was not provided by any .service files
error: Authorization error: Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replying

Further, attempting to list flatpaks doesn't seem to work either, so I don't know what else I can try:

$ flatpak search vlc
No matches found

The above, as best I understand, should list options for installing vlc.

Thanks to all for the efforts to assist. Sadly as of today (Jan 10) there's no improvement. I followed N0rbert's guidance to install / upgrade from the PPA (my original install was directly from the core repos "sudo apt install flatpak"). The installation seemed to work, but on attempting the remote-add, it fails:

$ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

** (flatpak remote-add:37255): WARNING **: 15:10:26.654: Error unregistering authentication agent: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name :1.139 was not provided by any .service files
error: Authorization error: Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replying

Is this possibly a Mate-specific thing? (I guess I'll try it on one of my other machines that has vanilla Ubuntu 20.04.)

Any suggestions?

405

0 + 0

ubuntu-mate

flatpak

Someone

5/10/23, 4:09 AM

Is this an error that only occurs when installing this particular package? If this is the case, please report it on their GitHub page. You could also install this application through a PPA. Your question is currently written in such a way that it lacks specificity and clarity. You must provide all pertinent information so that an appropriate answer can be given.

Toby Eggitt

5/10/23, 4:30 AM

I'm entirely unfamiliar with flatpak. I have no reason to think it's a problem with the package, but no way to test that. What would you like me to try?

Archisman Panigrahi

5/10/23, 4:45 AM

Check if some other flatpak package installs properly. For example, try `flatpak install flathub com.rafaelmardojai.Blanket` (Note - I am not affiliated with the development of this software).

Someone

5/10/23, 5:00 AM

Try running `flatpak update --appstream`

Nate T

5/10/23, 8:40 AM

If you installed flatpak via some method other than Apt, uninstall and follow the steps listed in @N0rbert's answer. It seems like there is something wrong with the wiring here. Behind the scenes, Flatpak has a relatively complex configuration, especiallly where permissions are involved / needed.

Toby Eggitt

5/10/23, 10:15 PM

I installed from apt, wasn't trying to be clever on that one... And update --appstream does nothing, just returns ("instantly") to the command prompt with no visible effect.

Score:4

Ubuntu

N0rbert

5/10/23, 7:16 AM

Your Flatpak version may be out-of-date. Install newer from official PPA as follows

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flatpak/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install flatpak

then add default FlatHub remote and retry installation of Chirp:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

cd ~/Downloads
wget -c https://trac.chirp.danplanet.com/chirp_daily/LATEST/chirp-daily-20220103.flatpak
flatpak install chirp-daily-20220103.flatpak

Then reboot to get flatpak registered in system, and finally launch CHIRP from Applications or Brisk menu.

0 + 0

Archisman Panigrahi

5/10/23, 7:23 AM

flatpak perfectly installs software within the home directory without `sudo`. It is not required.

N0rbert

5/10/23, 7:46 AM

On my test VM `flatpak` command asked for sudoer password two times - for remote and for install. Thanks, @ArchismanPanigrahi .

Toby Eggitt

5/10/23, 10:11 PM

I followed these instructions which seemed to be working, but failed at the remote-add part.

N0rbert

5/11/23, 6:43 AM

Mint is off-topic here, please use ordinary Ubuntu.

Elon Musk

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

EN: flatpak fails, seemingly entirely

TH: flatpak ล้มเหลว ดูเหมือนทั้งหมด

RO: flatpak eșuează, aparent complet

RU: flatpak терпит неудачу, по-видимому, полностью

VI: flatpak thất bại, dường như hoàn toàn

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.