Xdg-desktop-portal problems

1

Hi, when I try to open a torrent link in firefox it halts for a while, also PPTX (LibreOffice) and text files (Gedit). PDFs (with Atril) work ok. I blame xdg-desktop-portal. This happened in 24.10 too.
I think snap apps have a problem accessing xdg. Files open about 30 seconds later. I installed firefox from the mozilla repos and it works ok. Am I the only one with this problem? I don’t think I made any big change to Budgie. This install is new, not an update.

$ aptitude search xdg-* | grep ^i

i A python3-xdg - Python 3 library to access freedesktop.org standards
i A xdg-dbus-proxy - filtering D-Bus proxy
i A xdg-desktop-portal - desktop integration portal for Flatpak and Snap
i A xdg-desktop-portal-gnome - GNOME portal backend for xdg-desktop-portal
i A xdg-desktop-portal-gtk - GTK+/GNOME portal backend for xdg-desktop-portal
i A xdg-user-dirs - tool to manage well known user directories
i A xdg-user-dirs-gtk - tool to manage well known user directories (Gtk extension)
i A xdg-utils - Utilidades de integración en el escritorio de freedesktop.org

$ systemctl restart xdg-desktop-portal.service
Failed to restart xdg-desktop-portal.service: Unit xdg-desktop-portal.service not found.

$ journalctl -u xdg-desktop-portal.service
– No entries –

$ ps -aux | grep xdg-desktop-portal
user 3007 0.0 0.3 421412 27604 ? Ssl may10 0:00 /usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk

I reinstalled xdg-desktop-portal and nothing.

This is the logs after I tried to open a text file:

$ tail -20 syslog

2025-05-11T00:14:00.339982-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Failed to create screenshot proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gnome: Timeout was reached
2025-05-11T00:14:00.340360-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: No skeleton to export
2025-05-11T00:14:00.340456-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Choosing gnome.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Background via the deprecated UseIn key

2025-05-11T00:14:25.371103-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Failed to create background proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gnome: Timeout was reached
2025-05-11T00:14:25.371613-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: No skeleton to export
2025-05-11T00:14:25.371717-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Choosing gnome.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Wallpaper via the deprecated UseIn key
2025-05-11T00:14:50.397417-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Failed to create wallpaper proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gnome: Timeout was reached
2025-05-11T00:14:50.397831-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: No skeleton to export
2025-05-11T00:14:50.406305-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Choosing gnome-keyring.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Secret via the deprecated UseIn key
2025-05-11T00:14:50.411167-04:00 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[5916]: Choosing gnome.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.GlobalShortcuts via the deprecated UseIn key

2025-05-11T00:15:05.410869-04:00 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
2025-05-11T00:15:05.415377-04:00 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal.service: Failed with result ‘timeout’.
2025-05-11T00:15:05.415906-04:00 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Failed to start xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service.

$ systemctl --user status xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-gtk xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
× xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal.service; static)
Active: failed (Result: timeout) since Sun 2025-05-11 00:35:53 -04; 40s ago
Invocation: 03dc5d1e3c1c4a5ca2b8dd422f4a14cd
Process: 6772 ExecStart=/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal (code=killed, signal=TERM)
Main PID: 6772 (code=killed, signal=TERM)
Mem peak: 4.1M
CPU: 84ms

may 11 00:35:13 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: Failed to create background proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gnome>
may 11 00:35:13 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: No skeleton to export
may 11 00:35:13 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: Choosing gnome.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Wallpaper via the deprecated UseIn key
may 11 00:35:38 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: Failed to create wallpaper proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gnome:>
may 11 00:35:38 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: No skeleton to export
may 11 00:35:38 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: Choosing gnome-keyring.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Secret via the deprecated UseIn key
may 11 00:35:38 Slim5 xdg-desktop-por[6772]: Choosing gnome.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.GlobalShortcuts via the deprecated UseIn key
may 11 00:35:53 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
may 11 00:35:53 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal.service: Failed with result ‘timeout’.
may 11 00:35:53 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Failed to start xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service.

● xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service - Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation)
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service; static)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-05-11 00:27:27 -04; 9min ago
Invocation: c63e6e0331c64451a4cf5745a28c1d14
Main PID: 6400 (xdg-desktop-por)
Tasks: 5 (limit: 8972)
Memory: 6.7M (peak: 8.2M)
CPU: 166ms
CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service
└─6400 /usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk

may 11 00:27:27 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service - Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation)…
may 11 00:27:27 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Started xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service - Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation).

○ xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service - Portal service (GNOME implementation)
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service; static)
Active: inactive (dead)

may 11 00:09:28 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Dependency failed for xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service - Portal service (GNOME implementation).
may 11 00:09:28 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service: Job xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.
may 11 00:13:35 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Dependency failed for xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service - Portal service (GNOME implementation).
may 11 00:13:35 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service: Job xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.
may 11 00:27:27 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Dependency failed for xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service - Portal service (GNOME implementation).
may 11 00:27:27 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service: Job xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.
may 11 00:31:54 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Dependency failed for xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service - Portal service (GNOME implementation).
may 11 00:31:54 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service: Job xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.
may 11 00:34:23 Slim5 systemd[1756]: Dependency failed for xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service - Portal service (GNOME implementation).
may 11 00:34:23 Slim5 systemd[1756]: xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service: Job xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.service/start failed with result ‘dependency’.

2

Remove the xdg-desktop-portal-gnome package. This portal is only for the gnome-shell desktop and causes these sorts of issues for non gnome desktops

3

I have it as automatically installed.
Is it safe? aptitude wants to:
Remove

  1. ubuntu-session [47.0.1-2ubuntu3 (now, plucky)]         

  2. ubuntu-session-xsession [47.0.1-2ubuntu3 (now, plucky)]

    Install

  3. cinnamon-session [6.4.0-1 (plucky)]                    

  4. cinnamon-session-common [6.4.0-1 (plucky)]             

  5. gir1.2-xapp-1.0 [2.8.8-1 (plucky)]

    Leave unresolved:

  6. gnome-shell recomienda ubuntu-session | gnome-session

$ sudo aptitude remove xdg-desktop-portal-gnome

Se ELIMINARÁN los siguientes paquetes:
libcue2{u} libdee-1.0-4{u} libgexiv2-2{u} libgif7{u} libportal-gtk4-1{u} libportal1{u}
libtinysparql-3.0-0{u} libunity-protocol-private0{u} libunity-scopes-json-def-desktop{u}
libunity9{u} nautilus{u} nautilus-data{u} tinysparql{u} tracker-extract{u}
xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
0 paquetes actualizados, 0 nuevos instalados, 15 para eliminar y 3 sin actualizar.
Necesito descargar 0 B de ficheros. Después de desempaquetar se liberarán 9.424 kB.
No se satisfacen las dependencias de los siguientes paquetes:
ubuntu-session : Depende: xdg-desktop-portal-gnome pero no va a instalarse
Las acciones siguientes resolverán estas dependencias

 Eliminar los paquetes siguientes:                        

  1. ubuntu-session [47.0.1-2ubuntu3 (now, plucky)]         

  2. ubuntu-session-xsession [47.0.1-2ubuntu3 (now, plucky)]

    Instalar los paquetes siguientes:

  3. cinnamon-session [6.4.0-1 (plucky)]                    

  4. cinnamon-session-common [6.4.0-1 (plucky)]             

  5. gir1.2-xapp-1.0 [2.8.8-1 (plucky)]

    Leave las siguientes dependencias unresolved:

  6. gnome-shell recomienda ubuntu-session | gnome-session
4

When you have multiple desktop environments installed you will get these weird incompatibilities.

In this case you have cinnamon, gnome-shell and budgie.

So yes, remove the package if you dont want cinnamon or gnome-shell anymore.

5

I don’t remember installing anything, maybe some widget?. I think it all began with gnome-shell-extension-appindicator:

$ aptitude why xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
i gnome-shell-extension-appindicator Depende gnome-shell (< 49~)
i A gnome-shell Recomienda ubuntu-session | gnome-session
i A ubuntu-session Depende xdg-desktop-portal-gnome

I removed it, thank you.

6

Finally I know what happened, I installed protonvpn:

By default, the GNOME desktop doesn’t support tray icons. To enable this functionality on Debian-based distributions:

  1. Run:

sudo apt install libayatana-appindicator3-1 gir1.2-ayatanaappindicator3-0.1 gnome-shell-extension-appindicator

7

Hi @UB-user

Budgie isn’t GNOME, the VPN tray icon displays fine without “gnome-shell-extension-applicator” (UB 24.04): :smiley:

protonvpn
protonvpn430×255 132 KB