Bug 469839

Summary:	X11 applications may not autostart properly in a Wayland session due to various important environment variables not being set
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	einbert-xeride
Component:	Startup process	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	REOPENED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	alikooshafarzan, auxsvr, darkstar723, eugene.shalygin+bugzilla.kde, idoybh2, javier.tia+bugzilla.kde, kde, kde, leodream2008, nate, pedrobenner, postix, sam, tbacc+kde
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	wayland-only
Version First Reported In:	5.27.5
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description einbert-xeride 2023-05-16 07:58:07 UTC

SUMMARY

Autostarted applications may miss some important environment variables crucial for properly starting X11 applications in a Wayland session.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Add any X11 application to the autostarted application list.
2. Restart and watch how it behaves.

OBSERVED RESULT

It depends (it may hang or may not start). Generally can't be considered as "working".

EXPECTED RESULT

It shoud work as in X11 sessions.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: Arch Linux, Wayland sessions only
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.106.0
Qt Version: 5.15.9

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This is found when investigating Jetbrains Toolbox hang when autostarted in a Wayland session. JB Toolbox will show a tray icon and then freeze, with 100% CPU usage and no respond to click on the tray icon (which will typically open the JB Toolbox window). This issue exists for at least months. Such issue will disappear if manually started from the application launcher, or by manually invoking `<dir-of-toolbox-bin>/jetbrains-toolbox --minimize`. A simple perf shows that JB Toolbox is busy calling `xcb_wait_for_event` during the hang. It also doesn't appear in the output of `xlsclients` during the hang. After that I guessed that this issue may related to autostarting X11 applications in KDE.

So I made another attempt of autostarting Chrome in a Wayland session. Due to a Chrome 113 bug I'm using it without `--ozone-platform-hint=auto` which will make Chrome always use X11. Autostarting an X11 Chrome doesn't work as well. No window is displayed and the chrome process simply quits.

After further investigation I found that autostarted applications don't have some special environment variables, namely:

- DISPLAY
- GTK2_RC_FILES
- GTK_RC_FILES
- SESSION_MANAGER
- WAYLAND_DISPLAY
- XAUTHORITY

and have these environment variables different from manually started applications:

- INVOCATION_ID
- JOURNAL_STREAM

And found two of these environment variables are necessary:

- DISPLAY: unset this one makes JB Toolbox hang, as behaved when autostarted.
- XAUTHORITY: unset this one makes JB Toolbox quit with status code 44.

PS:

There's another issue I once encountered that is also related to autostart. Autostarted KeePassXC will use a bright theme instead of the dark theme (I uses Breeze Dark) when [View -> Theme] is [Automatic]. It will properly use the dark theme when manually started. This may also be a plasma issue as it started to appear after a plasma upgrade months ago, and appears on X11 session as well. I didn't pay much effort investigating it as it's not as frustrating as a hanging application, and may simply disappear after the huge refactoring towards KDE 6.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2023-05-16 19:08:24 UTC

Good investigation, thanks a lot for that.

Comment 2 Waoweens 2024-03-12 22:08:24 UTC

I can confirm this happens on Plasma 6. Didn't happen on Plasma 5 though

Steam fails to autostart, "Unable to open a connection to X" "Check your DISPLAY environment variable and make sure that you have enabled X."

Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.1
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.0.0
Qt Version: 6.6.2
Kernel Version: 6.7.9-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

Comment 3 einbert-xeride 2024-06-04 06:32:43 UTC

This bug somehow fixed itself in the latest version:

KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.2.0
Qt Version: 6.7.1
Kernel Version: 6.9.3-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

Can't figure out the exact version that fixed this bug as I didn't check after each update. Anyway, seems that this bug disappears in the latest version. Autostart of X11 applications works again.

Comment 4 Marc 2024-09-18 12:41:58 UTC

Not sure this is fixed.
I'm having this issue in 6.1.5, 

Steam is presenting as "Unable to open a connection to X"
Signal presents as "Missing X server or $DISPLAY"
Slack also presents as "Missing X server or $DISPLAY"

Not consistent, but I'd estimate autostart applications work as expected about 25% of the time.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.1.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.6.0
Qt Version: 6.7.2
Kernel Version: 6.10.10-zen1-1-zen (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

Comment 5 Nate Graham 2024-09-18 16:29:35 UTC

That's a different issue, and points to deeper setup issues on your machine. I would recommend asking Arch folks for help on the Arch forum.

Comment 6 Marc 2024-09-18 19:14:26 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #5)
> That's a different issue, and points to deeper setup issues on your machine.
> I would recommend asking Arch folks for help on the Arch forum.

Are we sure?

My $DISPLAY variable is in fact set and does work after login and this didn't start happening until the system was updated to KDE 6.1.5 specifically.

Comment 7 Nate Graham 2024-09-20 16:15:49 UTC

Hmm, OK, maybe it is the same thing after all.

Comment 8 Eugene Shalygin 2024-10-23 11:35:16 UTC

I have signal-desktop with --ozone-platform-hint=auto in the autostart as application (so I suppose it is launched via the .desktop file). When launched via KRunner, this electron app detects wayland and uses it, however the autostarted instance is launched via XWayland. And on one of the affected machines the autostarted Signal does not peek up the UI font. Plasma 6.2.2.

Comment 9 pedrobenner 2024-11-15 16:18:29 UTC

I believe I'm having the same problems when trying to launch some of my apps like spotify and stretchly. For now, I'm circumventing it by using the "On login, launch apps that were open: When session was manually saved" option from settings.

Comment 10 patrick 2025-10-22 10:50:12 UTC

I probably have the same issue, started Wayland session does not set the following environment variables:
- DISPLAY
- SESSION_MANAGER
- XAUTHORITY
As a result, several X11 apps won't work, including Steam, Heroic, Spotify, ZapZap, ProtonMail, Standard Notes etc. When I switch to X11 session and back to Wayland, it works normally. 

OS: CachyOS x86_64 
KDE Plasma 6.4.5
Qt Version: 6.10.0
Kernel Version: Linux 6.17.4-4-cachyos (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland