Xfce Forum

ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Issue with .desktop launchers

Hello,

I'm having issues with some of my .desktop program launchers. The problem came on suddenly, since they were all working earlier today. The problem likely wasn't caused by updating or installing new software, since I only updated my system after noticing the issue.

Here is the error message I get trying to launch openmw:

Failed to run "org.openmw.launcher.desktop"

GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dexec_2derror_2dquark.Code8: Failed to execute child process "openmw-launcher" (No such file or directory)

This issue is exclusive to programs from my /usr/games/ folder. I checked and the folder appears in my PATH. The problem goes away if I edit the launcher with the exact location of the program (/usr/games/openmw-launcher instead of just openmw-launcher). It's an easy fix, but I'd like to locate the source of the issue and resolve it regardless.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you

Last edited by ezrone (2024-08-19 18:10:27)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

Hello and welcome.

It sounds like the environment that xfce4-session inherits during startup doesn't include /usr/games in the path (not to be confused with the shell environment that is created when you are within Xfce).

To see the path that is inherited by Xfce, run the following command:

xargs -0 -L1 -a /proc/$(pgrep xfce4-session)/environ | grep PATH

To understand why it might not be inheriting the PATH it should, look into your start up files. Specifically, how do you start Xfce? startx or display manager. If display manager, which one? It might be that something has changed here that is impacting Xfce in the user environment. Also, which shell are you using within Xfce - most display managers will use /bin/sh.

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ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

Hello and welcome.

It sounds like the environment that xfce4-session inherits during startup doesn't include /usr/games in the path (not to be confused with the shell environment that is created when you are within Xfce).

To see the path that is inherited by Xfce, run the following command:

xargs -0 -L1 -a /proc/$(pgrep xfce4-session)/environ | grep PATH

To understand why it might not be inheriting the PATH it should, look into your start up files. Specifically, how do you start Xfce? startx or display manager. If display manager, which one? It might be that something has changed here that is impacting Xfce in the user environment. Also, which shell are you using within Xfce - most display managers will use /bin/sh.

Running the command to view the path inherited by xfce, I get:

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

So it looks like /usr/games is included.

I am using debian12, so my display manager is LightDM.

ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

Also, there seems to be no problem with launchers created on the panel. It's only when I create a .desktop file that the command fails and shows the above error.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

Also, there seems to be no problem with launchers created on the panel. It's only when I create a .desktop file that the command fails and shows the above error.

Is xfdesktop managing your desktop?

ps -ef  | grep -i desktop

Also:

xargs -0 -L1 -a /proc/$(pgrep xfdesktop)/environ | grep PATH

What version of xfdesktop is this?

xfdesktop -V

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ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

Also, there seems to be no problem with launchers created on the panel. It's only when I create a .desktop file that the command fails and shows the above error.

Is xfdesktop managing your desktop?

ps -ef  | grep -i desktop

Also:

xargs -0 -L1 -a /proc/$(pgrep xfdesktop)/environ | grep PATH

What version of xfdesktop is this?

xfdesktop -V

It looks like xfdesktop is managing my desktop. I checked the PATH using the command you provided and /usr/games is once again included.

Running xfdesktop -V I get:

This is xfdesktop version 4.18.1, running on Xfce 4.18

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

I just checked by Debian 12 VM and I can't replicate this problem. I even installed openmw-launcher and it works fine for me.

Have you restarted your computer? Maybe there is some library mismatch that needs to be fixed?

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ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

I just checked by Debian 12 VM and I can't replicate this problem. I even installed openmw-launcher and it works fine for me.

Have you restarted your computer? Maybe there is some library mismatch that needs to be fixed?

I have tried restarting multiple times. I have another device running Debian 12 which doesn't have the same issue.

I'm considering reinstalling debian, which will likely fix the issue. However, backing up my system would take some time, and the problem is minor to begin with (I can work around it by editing the launchers manually).

The launchers stopped working after a restart if I remember correctly. I hadn't updated or installed anything, but I was using wine through lutris, which has changed my default applications before. Is it possible WINE is to blame? I can't think of anything else other than a bad SSD.

Last edited by ezrone (2024-08-18 19:15:32)

ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

UPDATE: I fixed the problem. When I ran echo $PATH as root, I noticed my /usr/games file wasn't included. I checked /etc/environment and found that it was empty. I added a line to fix the root PATH and everything works now. Not sure why /usr/games was suddenly removed from my root's PATH but it seems to be fixed now.

Thanks for the help

eriefisher

Member

From: ON, Canada

Registered: 2008-10-25

Posts: 528

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

/usr/games is NOT in root's $PATH by default. Why are you running games as root?

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Siduction
Debian Sid
Xfce 4.18

ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

/usr/games is NOT in root's $PATH by default. Why are you running games as root?

When I installed debian I didn't set a root password and gave my user sudo privileges instead. The desktop launchers used to work fine, so maybe they started running as root without my knowledge. Any way to check this?

ezrone

Member

Registered: 2024-08-16

Posts: 8

Re: Issue with .desktop launchers

I just checked with htop and the programs I launch through the desktop shortcuts are run by my user, not root. However, adding /usr/games to my root's PATH fixed the error message I was getting.