[SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

Felix_F · Yesterday 11:34:25

Hello everyone, I am encountering a strange issue with (so far gnome-calendar and evolution, both latest from repo).
When trying to launch either one, it gives

~ gnome-calendar
bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin: Read-only file system

** (gnome-calendar:16469): ERROR **: 12:22:55.955: Failed to fully launch dbus-proxy: Child process exited with code 1
zsh: trace trap (core dumped)  gnome-calendar

Evolution produces the same output.

This has been the case for evolution for some time, it just never bothered me because I don't really use it. Gnome calendar on the other hand had worked flawlessly up until today.
Searching online I can only seem to find this issue related to flatpak, however the flatpak version of evolution runs without an issue, only the repo versions don’t.

I have already tried to reinstall and reset my TZ information, all without luck (at least to my knowledge there was never anything wrong with it).

~ ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin
-rw-r--r-- 6 root root 2298 Mar 23  2025 /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin

Any help/pointers where to look on this would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by Felix_F (Yesterday 20:25:12)

Acry · Yesterday 13:52:53

Hi, Felix_F!

Try running Calendar without sandboxing:

env GTK_DEBUG=no-bwrap gnome-calendar

If it launches without error → bwrap is the culprit.

This error almost always comes from bubblewrap (bwrap) being used by apps that use xdg-desktop-portal–style sandboxing, even when not installed as Flatpaks. GNOME Calendar and Evolution both use libsoup / webkit / portals, so they spawn dbus-proxy inside a restricted bwrap container.

Your error points to one thing:
bwrap cannot create directories under /usr/share/zoneinfo because the FS is unexpectedly read-only inside the sandbox.
Outside the sandbox, your system looks normal. Inside bwrap, something is failing.

It’s not fatal, but it is one of the easiest ways to trigger weird bwrap / portal failures, because:
Flatpak ships its own sandbox runtime
Arch packages expect the system sandbox runtime
If either side is outdated or mismatched, apps that rely on portals behave unpredictably.

So the issue isn’t “Flatpak vs repo” directly - it’s the fact that both use bubblewrap, seccomp, and portals, and a mismatch anywhere in that stack causes apps to break in strange ways.

I never used Flatpak or Snap, but I don't use a 'purely' system repo setup either. I use AUR and have a _lot_ of custom software.

Felix_F · Yesterday 17:47:28

Hi Acry, thanks for the quick reply!

I tried running with

env GTK_DEBUG=no-bwrap

, however it seems

no-bwrap

is not a valid option.

Setting the env variable to "help" only gives these options, and I was unable to find any other way.

~ env GTK_DEBUG=help gnome-calendar    
GTK_DEBUG can be set to values that make GTK print out different
types of debugging information or change the behavior of GTK for
debugging purposes.

Supported GTK_DEBUG values:
  keybindings        Information about keyboard shortcuts
  modules            Information about modules and extensions
  icontheme          Information about icon themes
  printing           Information about printing
  geometry           Information about size allocation
  size-request       Information about size requests
  actions            Information about actions and menu models
  constraints        Information from the constraints solver
  text               Information about GtkTextView
  tree               Information about GtkTreeView
  layout             Information from layout managers
  builder-trace      Trace GtkBuilder operation
  builder-objects    Log unused GtkBuilder objects
  no-css-cache       Disable style property cache
  interactive        Enable the GTK inspector
  touch-ui           Show touch ui elements for pointer events
  snapshot           Generate debug render nodes
  accessibility      Information about accessibility state changes
  iconfallback       Information about icon fallback
  invert-text-dir    Invert the default text direction
  css                Information about deprecated CSS features
  builder            Information about deprecated GtkBuilder features
  all                Enable all values. Other given values are subtracted
  help               Print this help

Multiple values can be given, separated by : or space.
bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin: Read-only file system

** (gnome-calendar:263200): ERROR **: 18:38:39.448: Failed to fully launch dbus-proxy: Child process exited with code 1
zsh: trace trap (core dumped)  env GTK_DEBUG=help gnome-calendar

In case it is a version mismatch somewhere like you said, would you just recommend to wait for the next update that might fix it or is there some simple way to figure out whose fault it actually is?

seth · Yesterday 18:29:42

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/webkitgtk … wrap/23242
Try "export WEBKIT_FORCE_SANDBOX=0"

Felix_F · Yesterday 20:24:18

Thanks seth, that was what I needed (note: the env variable changed, it is now 'env WEBKIT_DISABLE_SANDBOX_THIS_IS_DANGEROUS=1').

I also figured out why it suddenly appeared: I had changed the password on my Google account, so evolution/gnome-calendar would pop up a browser window to ask for the new password.

In the end, running

env WEBKIT_DISABLE_SANDBOX_THIS_IS_DANGEROUS=1 gnome-calendar

once to sign in again was enough, now I can run gnome-calendar normally again without issue.

The same is not true for evolution (it runs with the sandbox disabled, but simply signing in is not enough), however as I really don't use that program I don't really care too much.
Long term it would probably still be wise to find the actual root cause, so if anyone has experienced something similar, feel free to leave your knowledge here. I probably won't be debugging this very thoroughly because I don't have the time right now, but who knows.

Thanks again for the quick replies!

seth · Yesterday 20:33:16

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=224417 ran into this because of a (bogus) LD_LIBRARY_PATH => check "printenv"

Felix_F · Yesterday 21:11:41

Yup, that was also the case for me, my LD_LIBRARY_PATH also contained ".". Unsetting it makes evolution run fine.

Arch Linux

#1 Yesterday 11:34:25

[SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

#2 Yesterday 13:52:53

Re: [SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

#3 Yesterday 17:47:28

Re: [SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

#4 Yesterday 18:29:42

Re: [SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

#5 Yesterday 20:24:18

Re: [SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

#6 Yesterday 20:33:16

Re: [SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

#7 Yesterday 21:11:41

Re: [SOLVED] gnome-calendar crashes (bwrap: Can't mkdir parents for...)

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