Thank you for your help. I don't know why this flatpak version didn't work as expected in Manjaro. As i said before, i have other flatpak app running fine.
Joplin (and all modern Electron apps) use XDG Desktop Portals for the file open interface even outside of Flatpak/Snap environments, as this allows for e.g using the KDE filepicker rather than forcing GTK on KDE users.
It sounds you probably need to install them. There's at least a backend for Gnome, GTK, QT, and possibly a few other desktops.
If Manjaro doesn't include them by default even though they include both Snap and Flatpak by default, then report it to Manjaro, as that component is critical for those 2 methods in particular, but also essential for loads of other functionality, such as Screensharing on Wayland via PipeWire even outside of sandbox land.
1 Like
Yes, the packages "xdg-desktop-portal, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk and xdg-desktop-portal-xapp" are all installed on my system. I use Cinnamon as a DE.
I've set up a dual boot on my PC and have Linux Mint installed in a second partition. I installed Joplin-flatpak on Mint and it works as expected. It imports my "enex" file.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled Joplin-flatpak on Manjaro but the same problem persists. It still won't let me import.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Desktop_Portal
According to the wiki, the xapp backend doesn't have file picker support but GTK does.
The ability to have multiple backends (in a clean manner where it's explicitly considered as a usercase) is brand new, so you can create configuration to specify which backend should handle which request, but before the latest release I'd have said having multiple backends is misconfiguration.
Ensure your config is preferring the GTK backend over the Xapps backend for the filepicker interface.
Ok, so i deactivated "/usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/xapp-portals.conf" and rebooted my computer, but that didn't solve the problem.
On the wiki archlinux XDG_Desktop_Portal, it says that the portal for Cinnamon is "xdg-desktop-portal-xapp". So what to do ?
Use the official Joplin AppImage. The filepicker dialog works on Manjaro Cinnamon.
Well I don't know if de-activating Xapps automatically implies the same as activating the GTK backend for the file picker interface. That's why I didn't say to de-activate Xapps, I said to ensure the GTK backend is preferred. Both of these should already be capable of working in tandem, so it's entirely possible the system config is set up so GTK isn't being considered at all, and ultimately that's your machine and we can't guess what's been done to it.
I'd personally still expect the AppImage to have the same problem, since it should be using the same mechanism. But it's certainly something worth experimenting with to have more data on what's going on.
Ultimately, Arch is a distro that purposely comes with as little default configuration. Manjaro being an offspring inherits that, although complicates matters by shielding people from information they probably should know & would learn if they just installed Arch the normal way. Since it's supposed to be basically unconfigured by default, there's no way of us to know what's happened to the machine and what state it's in or supposed to be. And then throw in the Manjaro devs can change the base config in ways we can't expect, I'm left wondering what the point of Manjaro as a distro is.
Ultimately, if the portals aren't working, there won't be any update to the Flatpak that will fix it. The portals are a system service that Flatpaks expect to be present. If they're not, it's not the Flatpak that's broken.
Out of curiosity I installed Manjaro Cinnamon in a VM using defaults. No configuration changes. The Flatpak did not produce a filepicker dialog for any associated action (import, export etc.).
The AppImage worked fine.
Joplin 2.12.19 AppImage - Manjaro Cinnamon 23 - Filepicker dialog
2 Likes
Thanks for the feedback, I've never had success getting most distros to run in HyperV so couldn't test myself. I must be mistaken about the preference for the portals by default, but then Electron is rapidly changing software, so something might be correct one release and change the next.
Regardless, everything I'm seeing points to this being Manjaro not providing a suitable default for the portals. I'd imagine Manjaro on e.g Gnome might have better defaults and work just fine.
But the lack of suitable portals isn't a Flatpak (either the Flatpak project entirely or the specific Joplin Flatpak) bug. It's either a distro bug or a config problem, and in this case I'd go for the distro bug.
I think you are right. At the start of this thread I tested the Joplin Flatpak with the KDE version of Manjaro and it worked just fine. It may just be the community Cinnamon version that does not play nicely with the Joplin Flatpak, but I am not installing any more distros to find out! 
Regardless, it does not appear to be Joplin itself that has the problem as the AppImage works.
Is there any error in the console when you try to open the file picker from the Flatpak app? How to enable debugging | Joplin I wonder if we could somehow catch it and at least display some useful error message (unless error dialogs don't work either).
So far the problem has only occurred with the Flatpak version and only on the Cinnamon version of Manjaro Linux.
Joplin 2.12.19 Flatpak was installed on a vanilla Manjaro Linux 23.0.4 Cinnamon VM and started with flags.txt in place. No sync, no plugins, all Joplin settings default, default notes only.
After Joplin started an effort was made to (1) export all notes as JEX and (2) import an ENEX file as markdown. In both cases no filepicker dialog appeared, no errors were shown on the screen and the console showed no activity whatsoever. Joplin was then shut down. The log file is attached but to my untrained eye it shows nothing of note...
log.txt (8.8 KB)
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.