Bug 406115

Summary: Both "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections are missing in folder selector started by flatpaks
Product: [Plasma] xdg-desktop-portal-kde Reporter: Patrick Silva <bugseforuns>
Component: generalAssignee: Jan Grulich <jgrulich>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: normal CC: jgrulich, katyaberezyaka, kdelibs-bugs, nate
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Arch Linux   
OS: Linux   
URL: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/issues/200
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Elisa from Arch repos - "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections are present
Elisa from flathub - "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections are missing

Description Patrick Silva 2019-04-01 14:27:04 UTC
Created attachment 119196 [details]
Elisa from Arch repos - "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections are present

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. install Elisa player via flathub/flatpak
https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.kde.elisa
2. open Elisa, click hamburger button > Configure Elisa...
3. click "Add new path" button

OBSERVED RESULT
folder selector shows up without "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections
in the side bar. As we can see in the attached screenshots, such problem does not occur with Elisa installed from Arch repos.

EXPECTED RESULT
folder selector shows "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections in the side bar

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 5.15.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.56.0
Qt Version: 5.13.0 beta1

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I also can not access the mount points of my ntfs partitions using flatpak Elisa,
"/mnt" is not available. Is this problem related to the issue described here or
should I open another report?
Comment 1 Patrick Silva 2019-04-01 14:27:59 UTC
Created attachment 119197 [details]
Elisa from flathub - "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections are missing
Comment 2 Jan Grulich 2019-04-02 07:12:28 UTC
This is because selecting folders is not supported by portals, which means that instead opening a file dialog outside the sandbox, it opens regular file dialog inside the sandbox where you don't have access to your other devices.
Comment 3 Patrick Silva 2019-04-02 10:23:26 UTC
So there is a bug with portal? Where to report it?
I use a hard disk to install the operating system and other two hard disks to store personal data. Missing devices in folder selector makes my personal data inaccessible via such dialog and conseguently the flatpak software becomes unusable. Clearly there is an usability problem here.
Nowadays many users install their operating system on a SSD device and
use hard disks with greater capacity to store personal data. All of them would be affected by the problem described here.
Comment 4 Jan Grulich 2019-04-02 13:03:41 UTC
That's not a bug, there is no way how flatpak can expose a whole folder. The only  way is to use "flatpak run --filesystem=host org.kde.elisa".
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2019-04-02 16:29:16 UTC
(In reply to Jan Grulich from comment #2)
> This is because selecting folders is not supported by portals

That, um, seems like a fundamental flaw in the portal spec. How is software that asks the user to choose a folder supposed to work? It just... doesn't? How can we fix this?
Comment 6 Jan Grulich 2019-04-03 06:18:30 UTC
You can keep this bug closed, there is nothing we can do from our side and there are multiple reports for xdg-desktop-portal or flatpak.

For example: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/issues/158
Comment 7 Nate Graham 2019-04-03 15:22:16 UTC
...And the other one is https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/issues/200, as far as I can tell

So the correct resolution status is UPSTREAM. :)
Comment 8 Patrick Silva 2019-11-28 13:04:37 UTC
(In reply to Jan Grulich from comment #6)
> You can keep this bug closed, there is nothing we can do from our side and
> there are multiple reports for xdg-desktop-portal or flatpak.
> 
> For example: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/issues/158

xdg-desktop-portal issue is already fixed, xdg-desktop-portal 1.5.3 package installed on my system includes such fix but the bug reported here persists.
Comment 9 Patrick Silva 2020-04-01 16:05:31 UTC
This issue ppersists. Reopening as per comment 8.
Comment 10 Patrick Silva 2020-04-01 16:06:06 UTC
Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.68.0
Qt Version: 5.14.2
Comment 11 Patrick Silva 2020-04-08 13:14:07 UTC
https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/issues/200 is also fixed,
xdg-desktop-portal 1.7.2 package is installed on my system but this issue persists.

Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.68.0
Qt Version: 5.14.2
Comment 12 Jan Grulich 2020-04-22 05:52:33 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 419874 ***
Comment 13 Patrick Silva 2020-08-07 15:38:32 UTC
This issue is still reproducible. The following apps are also affected:

https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.musicbrainz.Picard
https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent
https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.Bleuzen.FFaudioConverter


Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.19.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.72.0
Qt Version: 5.15.0
Comment 14 Jan Grulich 2021-06-25 15:36:24 UTC
This should be fixed with KF5 5.83 with a fix in KFileWidget allowing to select directories.

Previously we would open a file dialog inside the sandbox, this is not the case anymore. Can you verify?
Comment 15 Patrick Silva 2021-09-18 13:57:06 UTC
(In reply to Jan Grulich from comment #14)
> This should be fixed with KF5 5.83 with a fix in KFileWidget allowing to
> select directories.
> 
> Previously we would open a file dialog inside the sandbox, this is not the
> case anymore. Can you verify?

Currently "Devices" and "Removable devices" sections are present,
despite the folder chooser is not tree-styled (see bug 437505).