signal-desktop does not support fractional scaling on wayland

[cuu508]

Using a supported version?

• [X] I have searched searched open and closed issues for duplicates.
• [X] I am using Signal-Desktop as provided by the Signal team, not a 3rd-party package.

Overall summary

I am using Ubuntu 24.04, GNOME 46, Wayland windowing system, Intel integrated graphics.

I'm using fractional scaling with 150% scale.

I've installed signal-desktop 7.12.0 from Signal's apt repository. When I launch signal-desktop, the app runs and UI elements have reasonable size, but all of the UI slightly blurry.

There are tips floating around to use signal-desktop --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland and also how to put together ~/.local/share/applications/signal-desktop.desktop with the same flags.

When I use this workaround I get sharp UI, but I also see several new issues:

• the app does not launch on the first launch (the process starts and outputs stuff to console, but no UI shows up). I have to start the second instance of the app for the UI window to appear
• the app uses a generic icon in the Alt+Tab dialog, and in the app overview (Win key)

Steps to reproduce

1. install signal-desktop on a system using GNOME, Wayland and fractional scaling
2. launch signal-desktop

Expected result

Sharp UI

Actual result

Blurry UI

Screenshots

Blurry UI (with GNOME Settings app on top for comparison):

Generic icon when using --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland

Signal version

7.12.0

Operating system

Ubuntu 24.04

Version of Signal on your phone

No response

Link to debug log

No response

[trevor-signal]

@cuu508 can you run an Electron Fiddle and see if you can reproduce the issue? Thanks!

[cuu508]

I installed electron-fiddle_0.36.3_amd64.deb. Running it with no arguments, I get blurry UI (Electron Fiddle on top, GNOME Terminal below as comparison):

If I run it with --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland arguments, I get sharp UI:

Unlike signal-desktop, the UI shows up on the first launch, and the app icon is correct in Alt+Tab and app overview views.

[trevor-signal]

@cuu508 thanks for that. The window not opening is a known issue; we're tracking it here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/6368.

[RelicCornhusk]

Same issue on Fedora Workstation 40 (wayland and using 150% fractional scaling). This seems to be an issue on flatpaks that don't support Wayland natively and rely on XWayland (source).

@cuu508 I managed to get rid of this issue by editing my signal-desktop flatpak to run with the following flags: --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland. To do so, I had to edit /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.signal.Signal.desktop, more specifically the flatpak run command to include those flags. Not blurry anymore for me. (see #5719)

Really wish this was the default for Wayland environments until Wayland is not supported natively.

Update: It was becoming a nightmare updating these run options on a per-app basis so the temporary solution I've found is to tweak the scaling factor on gnome-tweaks to 1.25 and keep the resolution scale at 100% on gnome-settings. Apps are not blurry anymore.

[RayJW]

Same issue on Fedora Workstation 40 (wayland and using 150% fractional scaling). This seems to be an issue on flatpaks that don't support Wayland natively and rely on XWayland (source).

@cuu508 I managed to get rid of this issue by editing my signal-desktop flatpak to run with the following flags: --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland. To do so, I had to edit /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.signal.Signal.desktop, more specifically the flatpak run command to include those flags. Not blurry anymore for me. (see #5719)

Really wish this was the default for Wayland environments until Wayland is not supported natively.

Update: It was becoming a nightmare updating these run options on a per-app basis so the temporary solution I've found is to tweak the scaling factor on gnome-tweaks to 1.25 and keep the resolution scale at 100% on gnome-settings. Apps are not blurry anymore.

The Flatpak maintainers already did all that work. This is from the Readme:

Wayland support can also be enabled on the command line: flatpak override --user --env=SIGNAL_USE_WAYLAND=1 org.signal.Signal

[michondr]

hi, Ive come across this issue which bothers me as well, and it seems its's stale. just bumping up

[frederik-elwert]

The Flatpak maintainers already did all that work. This is from the Readme:

Wayland support can also be enabled on the command line: flatpak override --user --env=SIGNAL_USE_WAYLAND=1 org.signal.Signal

The flag generally works, thanks! But I have the problem that I cannot resize the Signal window with that set, because the window borders don’t act as resize handles anymore. So this does not seem to be ready for prime time yet.

[devraza]

Nothing I've tried works - --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland just causes Signal to refuse to open up a window. Maybe this is only when not using Flatpak?

[ghost]

Yeah, it doesn't bring up a window. Using signal-desktop --use-tray-icon --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland and clicking on the tray bar icon works for me.

Edit: Using ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=auto environment variable works as well.

Edit: signal-desktop & sleep 1; signal-desktop is a better workaround. No need for the tray icon.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[cuu508]

I'm currently using signal-desktop 7.47.0 on Ubuntu 24.04, and am using 150% fractional scaling. The issue is still present as originally described.

[jashanbhullar]

Echoing the same. Running 7.52.0 on a fresh ubuntu 24.04 and it's still blurry. I was able to fix all the other electron apps by adding --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland in the .desktop files and every one worked except Signal

For anyone who comes here for reference:

cp /usr/share/applications/[APPLICATION_NAME].desktop ~/.local/share/applications
# for snap applications, look in the /snap folder 

# add the following in the `Exec` field 
-enable-features=UseOzonePlatform -ozone-platform=wayland
e.g. 
Exec=/usr/share/discord/Discord 
becomes
Exec=/usr/share/discord/Discord -enable-features=UseOzonePlatform -ozone-platform=wayland 

Launch the application from Tray icon and it works.

Tried the same approach with Signal and it was leaving a blurry trail on the window and scroll bar was flickering, although the text blurriness was gone. I am assuming Signal is not up-to-date with the latest electron version. (just a guess)

I'll sticky the blurry version for now but it might nice to get that crisp text on a 4K screen (my monitor is more expensive than my PC 😛 )

[argoneus]

I can confirm that this is resolved on 7.54.0, Ubuntu 25.04.

[ngocphamm]

I can confirm that this is resolved on 7.54.0, Ubuntu 25.04.

Do you mean it's good by default now, or --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland still needs to be added?

[argoneus]

Well, I thought it was resolved, but apparently was mistaken. It's still requiring the --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland

[cuu508]

I installed 7.55.0 to test. The UI is sharp if I run it as

signal-desktop --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland

But, same as before,

• the app does not launch on the first launch (the process starts and outputs stuff to console, but no UI shows up). I have to start the second instance of the app for the UI window to appear
• the app uses a generic icon in the Alt+Tab dialog, and in the app overview (Win key)

[ThinkChaos]

I also have the issue of no window showing up on launch.
It took a lot of digging to find the workaround in this issue so I made a dedicated one: #7363.

IIUC, this one can be closed now?

[ngocphamm]

So I have came across some weird situation with my setup with Ubuntu 25.04. I thought I was having blurry Signal, but I guess probably not (even though to my eyes, it's still very slightly not-as-sharp as other apps).

What I experienced is for some reason, the box glitched (I really don't know the reason) with my screen turned off, for a couple minutes. When it came back most things look okay, but after a while I noticed my GPU is doing harder than normal. It's an X11org process (I don't remember exactly if it's x11, or xorg as the process name, taxign my GPU ~20%. It's odd as I thought I I was running Wayland. Sure enough $XDG_SESSION_TYPE is X11.

After restarting the box, it's Wayland again. However, now I see that all chrome-based app I have is blurry. This is really blurry and not just slightly like I always thought Signal was before. It happened to Vivaldi, Obsidian, so I figured it's probably the issues I have seen elsewhere about Electron/Chrome-based apps. But... why I didn't have this before? Vivaldi and Obsidian were perfectly fine, and only Signal was ever slightly not-as-sharp.

Starting the journey trying to figure this out, I came across this https://old.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1fqo8kr/blurred_ui_in_flatpaks/lp7kvg4/. I ran the gsettings get org.gnome.mutter experimental-features command first, and it returns ['scale-monitor-framebuffer, 'x11-randr-fractional-scaling']. The reddit posts says xwayland-native-scaling, so something is off. I reset the setting with gsettings reset org.gnome.mutter experimental-features, and my screens resolutions are quite off. After going to Settings > Display to set the scale to 150% like I have always had before, EVERYTHING is fine! gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features now returns xwayland-native-scaling. Vivaldi, Obsidian, Signal are now back to normal.

So maybe this is the issue for at least some of us? For anyone in a newer OS versions, at the very least Ubuntu 25.04 like I do, check that setting and if possible try to set it to xwayland-native-scaling.

I'm not taking any responsibility, though 😅 I don't really understand any of this!

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[cuu508]

I'm currently using signal-desktop 7.68.0 on Ubuntu 24.04, and am using 150% fractional scaling. The issue is still present:

• If I install and launch signal-desktop, the UI is not sharp
• If I launch signal-desktop with ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=wayland then the UI is sharp but the app uses a generic icon

One thing that is fixed is that signal-desktop UI appears on the first launch, I do not need to launch it twice any more.

[geekmdtravis]

I am also experiencing this issue on Signal v7.69.0 on Arch with Linux 6.16.5-arch1-1 under Wayland (Hyprland). Launching with this command offered me a successful workaround for the issue: signal-desktop --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland.

[phoenix-frozen]

As of v7.72.1/snap, the old workaround of --ozone-platform=auto no longer works. Thank you @geekmdtravis for this new workaround! Works on Ubuntu 25.04

[ngocphamm]

For people on Ubuntu, creating a ~/.local/share/applications/signal-desktop.desktop like this

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Signal
Exec=env XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland /opt/Signal/signal-desktop --ozone-platform=wayland %U
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=signal-desktop
StartupWMClass=signal
Comment=Private messaging from your desktop
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/sgnl;x-scheme-handler/signalcaptcha;
Categories=Network;InstantMessaging;Chat;

2 key points, because Signal moved to use Electron 38

• --ozone-platform=wayland
• StartupWMClass=signal. It's lowercase signal compared to the original file being Signal. This is to help with no icon on window.

env XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland is supposed to work by itself, but doesn't, yet because of this bug below from Electron https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/48298

[tibequadorian]

Signal on wayland works fine for me on displays with fractional scaling >= 100% but for values < 100% it's smaller that it is supposed to be and doesn't maximize. I recorded an example on 90% fractional scaling in KDE Plasma 6:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/01746baf-1583-473f-92bf-414d0830c6d1

[oniondip420]

I am on Manjaro (kernel 6.12.48-1-MANJARO) with KDE Plasma (v6.3.6) using Wayland as the graphics platform. I have two monitors with different scaling settings to produce approximately similar-sized UI elements on either screen (due to resolution/screen size/distance factors):

• My laptop screen itself is 2560x1600 at 150% scaling. When the Signal desktop window is on this screen, it displays perfectly fine.
• I have an external monitor HDMI'd into the laptop that is 1920x1080 at 80% scaling. If I move the window to this monitor, suddenly it experiences the same issue shown in the video posted by @tibequadorian , where the window shrinks and refuses to maximize. I could learn to live with this, but additionally I am having cursor alignment issues where my mouse clicks are not registering where the cursor is positioned. Also, if I click out of the window, it randomly sizes down. 🤷

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/e50f65cd-a1f9-4290-8129-4290a78bbdd6

While OS/KDE visual elements display completely fine with my display scaling settings—and many apps like Firefox work without any issues—I have run into plenty of issues with electron/chromium-based apps. For Chrome itself, I had to resort to a hacky workaround of using google-chrome-stable --disable-features=WaylandFractionalScaleV1, which simply tells the app to ignore the Wayland scaling. However, this same flag does nothing if I pass it into the signal-desktop executable.

I have tried running Signal as signal-desktop --ozone-platform=wayland, signal-desktop --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland, and signal-desktop --enable-features=WaylandWindowDecorations --ozone-platform-hint=auto --ozone-platform=wayland, all exhibiting the same behavior on my external monitor. I also attempted to install the AUR package signal-desktop-blur-me-not, which similarly did nothing (even after a system restart). Currently, I cannot figure out a way to get around this issue, which makes the app clunky to use by only being functional on the monitor that is further away from me.

EDIT: After messing around more, including a system reboot, it seems as though signal-desktop --disable-features=WaylandFractionalScaleV1 does indeed work (not sure why it didn't work last time, perhaps just a typo, or something else that cleared up after the reboot). To permanently implement this launch option, I added it to the Exec line in /usr/share/applications/signal-desktop.desktop. Unfortunately, it does not seem as though there is a way to cascade this to all electron apps on my system so I wouldn't have to edit each app individually, but at least now I know this seems to work for more than just Chrome. I still wish that the apps worked properly out of the box, but hopefully this will help others in the future.