Arch Linux

Shibboleth

Member

Registered: 2023-03-01

Posts: 21

[Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

When I try to open a file dialogue in Firefox or Chromium with either ctrl+o or downloading a file, nothing happens. I've read https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefox, reinstalled  xdg-desktop-portal and  xdg-desktop-portal-gtk but to no avail. This seems to have begun  happening after a recent update, but I'm not sure what's caused it, or what xdg mime setting is used for these to try and debug. I'm using i3wm as my window manager if that's relevant.
Any help would be great.

Last edited by Shibboleth (2026-05-08 08:41:57)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,543

Re: [Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 9#p2294539
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 0#p2293890

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Shibboleth

Member

Registered: 2023-03-01

Posts: 21

Re: [Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

Cheers for the response seth.
Looking at those threads, and https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=308200. I noticed that xdg-desktop-portal-gtk  was falling over with "cannot open display" in the output of journalctl -b. That led me to the 2nd note on the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xinit#xinitrc page. Adding that to ~/.xinitrc so that it read:

xinitdir="/etc/X11/xinit"

if [ -d "$xinitdir"/xinitrc.d ] ; then
	for f in "$xinitdir/xinitrc.d"/?*.sh ; do
		[ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
	done
	unset f
fi

setxkbmap gb
setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape
sxhkd &
dunst &
exec i3

Sorted the file dialogues, however now the themeing in firefox is off - background color of the tab bar, clicked url-bar, and  the ctrl-f pop-up are a blinding white rather than properly deriving from a dark theme. Not sure what the cause of that is, but just using a dark theme in firefox rather than "System theme - auto" seems to solve it.

Thanks for your help!

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,543

Re: [Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

\o/
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

kunzese

Member

Registered: 2023-10-04

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

I ran into the same issue and never source the files under /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d, but everything worked since 2011 until my system upgrade on 2026-05-03. Does anyone know what exactly changed that might this a requirement?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,543

Re: [Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

xdg-desktop-portal requires a functional session bus and you didn't have that, "everything" didn't work - you just didn't notice the brokenness.
It's the 4th link in my signature for a reason

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

kunzese

Member

Registered: 2023-10-04

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Firefox/Chromium not opening file dialogues

Well ok maybe not "everything" but the file dialogs to up- or download a file worked before. So there was definitely a package update which changed behavior.