Appchooser not showing any options except Thunderbird itself when interacting with files.

[PhilippKuntschik]

I am not 100% sure if this is the right place since I still do not fully understand how flatpak permissions and desktop portals play together. The testing I did the last hours led me to open this issue

The symptoms are, that the appchooser dialog does only show thunderbird as an option to open pdf files. This leads to create a new draft including the pdf as an attachment. I expect to have various options from apps installed with and without flatpak to choose from.

To narrow down if it is an issue with my system, the desktop portal implementation or the flatpak-app, I tried opening a pdf with other apps as well. Zotero for example let me chose Evince (non flatpak) as an opening option, leading to my guess that it is neither my system, nor the desktop portal imlementation.

System is Xubuntu 21.04 with updated software.

Please let me know if you need any information.

[Erick555]

In order to use portal you need to chose System Handler option, the Other won't work in flatpak. The former should show available apps on system that can handle attachment or open it automatically. I confirmed it working on Kubuntu 21.04 with flatpak 1.10.2

Note that I saw some regression with flatpak 1.11.1 so if you installed it from ppa I recommend to go back to distro version.

[PhilippKuntschik]

thanks for the reply @Erick555.

I downgraded to flatpak 1.10.2 and can confirm that it works. do you know if this is a known issue? should this be reported upstream?

edit: I see that you already did: flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal#589 thanks again

[macmpi]

issue persists on elementary 6.1 / flatpak 1.12.4 / Thunderbird 91.5.1 (flatpak)
I can not open any attachment, whatever attachment setting (System Handler or Always ask).
Thanks for any tip.

[Erick555]

What is xdg-desktop-portal version? It should be 1.10.0 at minimum.

[Erick555]

You have to either downgrade flatpak below 1.11 or upgrade xdg-desktop-portal above 1.10

[macmpi]

/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal --version
xdg-desktop-portal 1.7.2

not sure why I have so many portal-related stuff on elementary 6.1:

/usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal-pantheon.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/io.elementary.settings-daemon.xdg-desktop-portal.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/io.elementary.files.xdg-desktop-portal.service
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xdg-desktop-portal-pantheon
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/io.elementary.files.xdg-desktop-portal
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/io.elementary.settings-daemon.xdg-desktop-portal
/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal
/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-validate-icon

nor sure if/how/what should be updated: according to apt, everything is up to date...

[Erick555]

I think it's best to raise this issue regarding xdg-desktop-portal update to Elementary 6.1 developers.

not sure why I have so many portal-related stuff on elementary 6.1:

This is normal. There are many portal supplementary tools.

[Erick555]

BTW: combination of flatpak 1.12.4 + xdg-desktop-portal 1.7.2 is suspiciously close to flatpak PPA for ubuntu bionic so if you use it then please disable and reinstall thos packages from distro repos.

[macmpi]

Thanks, but no, I do not have that PPA installed.

[Erick555]

Then maybe Elementary reuse packages from PPA? Either way this combination is invalid for Thunderbird.

[ovari]

Uninstalled Thunderbird on both Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon and LMDE 5 operating systems before installing Thunderbird flatpak.

Same situation with Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon and LMDE 5.

Does this mean it isn't an Elementary issue as it also happens on Linux Mint (Ubuntu base) and LMDE (Debian base)?

Thank you

[Erick555]

This is problem for every distro which ships incompatible versions of flatpak and xdg-desktop-portal

[mzilhao]

I'm seeing this same issue on Fedora 36. Both flatpak and xdg-desktop-portal are above version 1.12:

Name : flatpak
Version : 1.12.7

Name : xdg-desktop-portal
Version : 1.12.3

[Erick555]

Does it work for any other flatpak?

[mzilhao]

OK, I've now installed the latest Thunderbird version on flathub (91.8.0) and it seems to be working fine.

[dagdrommer]

Hello there. For me it's not working anymore in Thunderbird from flathub (91.10.0).

[Erick555]

Does it work for any other flatpak app (firefox for example)?

[dagdrommer]

I can confirm it for firefox aswell.

[Erick555]

The it's some issue with portals on your system. You may report it here

[ubiquando]

Hello, I still have the same problem with thunderbird 102.5.1 and xdg-desktop-portal 1.15.0-4, fedora 37.
It seems I should uninstall it from flatpak and reinstall with dnf but I'm afraid I would loose things...

[Erick555]

There are instructions for migration from non-flatpak to flatpak TB. You may just move files in other direction to do the opposite.