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debian: Element Desktop in firejail without dbus crashes hard after update (2025-05-23 from riot.im/packages) #30010

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@aral-matrix

Description

@aral-matrix

Steps to reproduce

  1. Where are you starting? What can you see?

I just had observed a complete failure to send any messages to some rooms on matrix.org (my homeserver, see my username - rooms that failed: matrix HQ, element web/desktop) and thought it might be due to a downward incompatible change to the matrix protocol. So - I upgraded to the latest version of Element Desktop from the debian repo at riot.im/packages - running debian stable.

Result: When using my normal script to start element-desktop in a firejail:

env DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=none firejail --noprofile --private=~/.firejail element-desktop

the messenger app crashes hard on startup with the following errors:

Parent pid 33826, child pid 33827
Child process initialized in 16.42 ms
/home/user/.config/Element exists: yes
/home/user/.config/Riot exists: no
(node:4) [DEP0180] DeprecationWarning: fs.Stats constructor is deprecated.
(Use `element-desktop --trace-deprecation ...` to show where the warning was created)
Loading app config: /opt/Element/resources/webapp.asar/config.json
Loading local config: /home/user/.config/Element/config.json
Skipping nonexistent file: /home/user/.config/Element/config.json
[4:0523/233216.348879:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
[4:0523/233216.348924:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
[4:0523/233216.348935:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
[4:0523/233216.348945:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
Reached Electron ready state
[4:0523/233216.424103:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
[4:0523/233216.429743:ERROR:dbus/object_proxy.cc:590] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.NameHasOwner: object_path= /org/freedesktop/DBus: unknown error type: 
Starting auto update with base URL: https://packages.element.io/desktop/update/
Auto update not supported on this platform
Fetching translation json for locale: en_EN
Changing application language to en
Fetching translation json for locale: en
Resetting the UI components after locale change
Resetting the UI components after locale change
Ensuring storage is ready
safeStorage backend 'gnome_libsecret' selected, 'gnome_libsecret' in config.
Error: safeStorage is not available
    at Store.prepareSafeStorage (file:///opt/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/store.js:273:19)
    at async Store.safeStorageReady (file:///opt/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/store.js:175:9)
    at async App.<anonymous> (file:///opt/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/electron-main.js:401:9)
Opening main window
[4:0523/233216.546066:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
[4:0523/233216.609795:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:408] Failed to connect to the bus: Address does not contain a colon
(node:4) [DEP0044] DeprecationWarning: The `util.isArray` API is deprecated. Please use `Array.isArray()` instead.
[4:0523/233216.629669:ERROR:dbus/object_proxy.cc:590] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.NameHasOwner: object_path= /org/freedesktop/DBus: unknown error type: 

When not disabling dbus by starting like so:

firejail --noprofile --private=~/.firejail element-desktop

element-desktop starts "normally" without errors.

It appears one of the latest patches made unavailability of dbus a hard crash bug. Please revoke / fix that - dbus is incredibly scary to me as a software developer because it makes it impossible to distinguish whether an app has access to my home folder by a faulty jail configuration (or a jailbreak), or whether that's "just" dbus doing it's not-so-amusing job.

Outcome

What did you expect?

I expected that the updated desktop app starts as before the update.

What happened instead?

The updated desktop app crashes hard with the above logged error messages due to dbus being disabled

Operating system

debian stable (bookworm)

Application version

I can't check the version because the app crashes on startup

How did you install the app?

from riot.im/packages debian repository

Homeserver

matrix.org

Will you send logs?

No

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    A-ElectronO-UncommonMost users are unlikely to come across this or unexpected workflowS-CriticalPrevents work, causes data loss and/or has no workaroundT-Defect

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