Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

Flapper · 2026-04-27 12:18:33

xdg-desktop-portal-gtk and xdg-desktop-portal have been installed as a dependency of GTK4, but I'm getting journal messages relating to Starting Portal service, such as:

Apr 27 00:28:00 ArchPC2 /usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal[808]: Choosing gtk.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Lockdown as a last-resort fallback
Apr 27 00:28:00 ArchPC2 systemd[718]: Starting Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation)...
Apr 27 00:28:00 ArchPC2 xdg-desktop-portal-gtk[827]: cannot open display:
Apr 27 00:28:00 ArchPC2 systemd[718]: xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Apr 27 00:28:00 ArchPC2 systemd[718]: xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Apr 27 00:28:00 ArchPC2 systemd[718]: Failed to start Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation).

I don't particularly want xdg-desktop-portal, or rtkit (which is Poetteringware and I have been trying to avoid installing it) as I have no intention od using flatpak.
Masking units xdg-desktop-portal.service and xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service doesn't work.

I'm using the Wayland compositor 'scroll', installed with the AUR package https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/sway-scroll, which installs the file /usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal/scroll-portals.conf which configures what portal to use for each situation.

Any ideas what the problem is?

V1del · 2026-04-27 13:56:42

That file configures to use the GTK portal for protocols that have not been explicitly configured, since a request to a protocol is made that isn't configured it will want to invoke the GTK one by default.

Is WAYLAND_DISPLAY and XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP injected into the user environment, as detailed in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_De … _not_start ?

Generally speaking, more and more tools rely on the xdg portal to be able to provide a platform agnostic "picker" of stuff (file picker, screen share pickers...), so the scope of this is not limited to flatpak (anymore) and not fixing this will likely degrade your experience regarding being able to utilize these processes.

dimich · 2026-04-27 15:43:42

V1del wrote:

Generally speaking, more and more tools rely on the xdg portal

Does anyone know some no-op org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver stub service to shut up that

/usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal[1347]: A backend call failed: Inhibiting other than idle not supported
xdg-desktop-portal-gtk[1371]: Backend call failed: Cannot invoke method; proxy is for the well-known name org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver without an owner, and proxy was constructed with the G_DBUS_PROXY_FLAGS_DO_NOT_AUTO_START flag

spamming to journal every minute?

Flapper · 2026-04-27 15:57:40

WAYLAND_DISPLAY and XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP were set as environment variabless not in systemd user session as the

include ...config.d/*

line was commented out!

I hesitate to mark it as solved as I see other users would evidently prefer less xdg-desktop-portals too.

V1del · 2026-04-27 16:34:59

The not portal solution would be to have every tool reimplement this again and create friction between file pickers for example (I for one very much enjoy not having to see GTKs picker anymore in my browser), while I dislike flatschpak as much as the next guy, having some centralized API to set and query these common features agnostically between toolkits/environments is something that makes sense and flatpak just happened to be the first to actually need this to talk with processes outside of the sandbox, so that's what was stuck. The implementation could've been better but I'm not deathly opposed to how it's currently handled. It's ultimately one way to try and centralize common functionality in an agnostic manner.

You're not going to be able to avoid this if you want any of these functionalities and especially not on a Wayland session (where the fact that every client could just coerce Xorg into most of the screen saver/locking stuff was ultimately one of the main reasons behind the security model of Wayland)

seth · 2026-04-27 16:57:17

portal isn't exclusively used for flatpak but also to fill some gaps in wayland and overall DE integration (file pickers etc)
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … k_items/14

# Maintainer: Me <me at here>

pkgname=xdg-desktop-portal-dummy
pkgver=1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Der Pokal mit dem Portal hat den Wein gut und rein."
arch=('any')
license=('GPL')
depends=()
provides=(xdg-desktop-portal-gtk)

@dimich, X11 or wayland?
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xssproxy

Edit: F5ck

Last edited by seth (2026-04-27 16:57:39)

dimich · 2026-04-27 17:23:57

seth wrote:

@dimich, X11 or wayland?

X11.
xdg-desktop-portal-gtk recently pulled in as a mandatory dependency for gtk4.

seth wrote:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xssproxy

Thanks, I'll take a look. I don't need any screensavers in my system and was going to implement a stub for mocking screensaver dbus interface by myself. However, if xssproxy already implements what I need, that would be perfect.

seth · 2026-04-27 17:33:03

See above for the "mandatory" part - it's not gonna be a linked or dlopened library but some features might fail (I guess depends on what you actually need/use gtk4 for)

NuSkool · 2026-04-28 20:34:07

I've installed two dummy packages for the new dependencies xdg-desktop-portal and xdg-desktop-portal-gtk pulled in from the last gtk4 update:
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … c060f18844

$ aurch -Lah | grep dummy
60  xdg-desktop-portal-dummy          1.0-1                           [installed]
61  xdg-desktop-portal-gtk-dummy      1.0-1                           [installed]
    
$ cat /usr/local/aurch/base/chroot-fME/home/builduser/xdg-desktop-portal-dummy/PKGBUILD /usr/local/aurch/base/chroot-fME/home/builduser/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk-dummy/PKGBUILD
# Maintainer: Me
    
pkgname=xdg-desktop-portal-dummy
pkgver=1.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Dummy package satisfying xdg-desktop-portal dependency"
arch=('any')
license=('GPL')
provides=('xdg-desktop-portal')
conflicts=('xdg-desktop-portal')
replaces=('xdg-desktop-portal')

# Maintainer: Me

pkgname=xdg-desktop-portal-gtk-dummy
pkgver=1.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Dummy package satisfying xdg-desktop-portal-gtk dependency."
arch=('any')
license=('GPL')
provides=('xdg-desktop-portal-gtk')
conflicts=('xdg-desktop-portal-gtk')
replaces=('xdg-desktop-portal-gtk')

I'm on Xfce desktop and not noticed any issues as far.

seth · 2026-04-28 20:55:39

Providing a dummy for only xdg-desktop-portal-gtk should™ suffice because gtk4 explicitly depends on that and only it in turn would drag in xdg-desktop-portal.

The original comment btw. is from the German dubbing of "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" - just so you know what you foolishly censored away there

dimich · 2026-04-28 23:00:06

seth wrote:

See above for the "mandatory" part - it's not gonna be a linked or dlopened library but some features might fail (I guess depends on what you actually need/use gtk4 for)

Once I spent a half of day trying to figure out why I can't "Save As" a project in one specific IDE (not flatpak). It was before https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=313120 posted.
It turned out that dialogs in some other apps didn't work as well, and installing xdg-desktop-portal{,-gtk} fixed the issue. But introduced spam in journal about absense of screensaver.
Some time later dialogs started working without xdg-desktop-portal{,-gtk}, so I uninstalled those packages. Everything worked fine and I was happy. Now they are pulled again as a dependency, so I hesitate to break or spoof dependencies with dummy packages: if it breaks something non-obvious in the future, I'll have to spend time investigating again. Spoofing screensaver and leaving xdg-desktop-portal{,-gtk} installed looks safer. For now xssproxy seems fixed spam issue, thank you again.

NuSkool · Yesterday 01:16:55

seth wrote:

Providing a dummy for only xdg-desktop-portal-gtk should™ suffice because gtk4 explicitly depends on that and only it in turn would drag in xdg-desktop-portal.

Good point you're right, thank you seth.
I may leave them as is though, which has a very good chance of breaking anything relying on xdg-desktop-portal as a dependency.
This may very well send me on a wild goose chase of troubleshooting, a few years from now after I forget about my unneeded dummy pkg.
I look forward to the challenge though for some reason. I'll blame it on retirement....

seth wrote:

The original comment btw. is from the German dubbing of "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" - just so you know what you foolishly censored away there

IIRC, wasn't that from an old Monty Python movie?

translator wrote:

The cup with the portal holds the wine well and purely.

lol, Did something get lost in the translation? I'm probably just not bright enough to get it though. My strength is definitely tenacity more so that smarts.

Maybe something like this in English:

The portals from the project has the code that makes me blue!

Last edited by NuSkool (Yesterday 01:29:32)

seth · Yesterday 05:22:12

IIRC, wasn't that from an old Monty Python movie?

https://archive.org/details/the-court-jester_202504 ~ 1:19:30
The translation is ok, it's meant to be crazy

Arch Linux

#1 2026-04-27 12:18:33

Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#2 2026-04-27 13:56:42

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#3 2026-04-27 15:43:42

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#4 2026-04-27 15:57:40

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#5 2026-04-27 16:34:59

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#6 2026-04-27 16:57:17

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#7 2026-04-27 17:23:57

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#8 2026-04-27 17:33:03

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#9 2026-04-28 20:34:07

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#10 2026-04-28 20:55:39

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#11 2026-04-28 23:00:06

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#12 Yesterday 01:16:55

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

#13 Yesterday 05:22:12

Re: Uninvited xdg-desktop-portal errors

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