[BUG] Ghostty Desktop Launch Failure on Fedora KDE via Terra Repository

[pixincreate]

Describe the bug

Ghostty fails to launch when started from desktop launchers (KRunner, application menu, etc.) but works correctly when launched from terminal with an error (if config has a theme selected) since Ghostty from Terra repo does not come with themes pre-packaged

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Install 'ghostty' with sudo dnf install ghostty after enabling terra repo
2. Launch ghostty from desktop
3. Error

Expected behavior

The terminal app should launch without any issues

Affected (please complete the following information):

• OS: Fedora KDE 43
• Package: ghostty-1.2.3 from Terra repository
• Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma 6.5.1

Additional context

Error Message

Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, 
the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network 
connection was broken.

❯ ps aux | grep ghostty
pix         8284  0.0  0.0 231272  2624 pts/1    S+   23:32   0:00 grep --color=auto ghostty
❯ pkill ghostty
❯ gtk-launch com.mitchellh.ghostty
❯ echo "above command did not start ghostty"
❯ /usr/bin/ghostty
info: ghostty version=1.2.3
info: ghostty build optimize=ReleaseFast
info: runtime=apprt.Runtime.gtk
info: font_backend=font.main.Backend.fontconfig_freetype
info: dependency harfbuzz=11.5.1
info: dependency fontconfig=21700
info: renderer=renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.OpenGL)
info: libxev default backend=io_uring
info(os_locale): setlocale from env result=en_US.UTF-8
info(gtk): GTK version build=4.20.2 runtime=4.20.2
info(gtk): libadwaita version build=1.8.1 runtime=1.8.1
info: reading configuration file path=/home/pix/.config/ghostty/config
info(config): loading config-file path=/home/pix/Dev/.configs/home/config/.config/ghostty/os/linux.conf
info(config): loading config-file path=/home/pix/Dev/.configs/home/config/.config/ghostty/theme.conf
info(config): loading config-file path=/home/pix/Dev/.configs/home/config/.config/ghostty/appearance.conf
info(cli): compatibility handler for background-blur-radius handled error, you may be using a deprecated field: error.InvalidField
info(config): loading config-file path=/home/pix/Dev/.configs/home/config/.config/ghostty/keybinds.conf
info(config): loading config-file path=/home/pix/Dev/.configs/home/config/.config/ghostty/quick-terminal.conf
info(config): default shell source=env value=/usr/bin/zsh
warning(config): quit-after-last-window-closed-delay is set to a very short value (2s), which might cause problems
warning(gtk_ghostty_application): setting GDK_DEBUG=
warning(gtk_ghostty_application): setting GDK_DISABLE=gles-api,vulkan

(process:8646): Adwaita-WARNING **: 23:34:03.445: Using GtkSettings:gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme with libadwaita is unsupported. Please use AdwStyleManager:color-scheme instead.
info(gtk_ghostty_application): cgroup isolation disabled via config=config.Config.LinuxCgroup.single-instance
info(opengl): loaded OpenGL 4.6
info(shadertoy): loaded custom shader path=/home/pix/Dev/.configs/home/config/.config/ghostty/shaders/cursor-warp.glsl
info(io_exec): found Ghostty resources dir: /usr/share/ghostty
info(io_exec): shell integration automatically injected shell=termio.shell_integration.Shell.zsh
warning(gtk_ghostty_application): unimplemented action=apprt.action.Action.Key.cell_size
info(io_exec): started subcommand path=/bin/sh pid=8681
info(io_exec): subcommand cgroup=-
info(osc): unknown semantic prompts option: cl
warning(osc): invalid OSC command: 1337;SetUserVar=WEZTERM_PROG=
warning(osc): invalid OSC command: 1337;SetUserVar=WEZTERM_USER=cGl4
warning(osc): invalid OSC command: 1337;SetUserVar=WEZTERM_IN_TMUX=MA==
warning(osc): invalid OSC command: 1337;SetUserVar=WEZTERM_HOST=cGl4dw==
warning(osc): invalid OSC command: 133;P;k=i
warning(osc): invalid OSC command: 1337;SetUserVar=WEZTERM_PROG=ZXhpdA==
info(io_exec): pty fd closed, read thread exiting
info(surface): surface closed addr=55ddf00ff2d0
^C
❯ echo "above command did start ghostty"
❯ cat /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.mitchellh.ghostty.service

───────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       │ File: /usr/share/dbus-1/services/com.mitchellh.ghostty.service
───────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   1   │ [D-BUS Service]
   2   │ Name=com.mitchellh.ghostty
   3   │ SystemdService=app-com.mitchellh.ghostty.service
   4   │ Exec=/usr/bin/ghostty --gtk-single-instance=true --initial-window=false
───────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
❯ dbus-send --session --print-reply --dest=com.mitchellh.ghostty /com/mitchellh/ghostty org.gtk.Application.Activate
Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

Additional Issue: Missing Theme Database

The Terra package does not include the official Ghostty theme database, causing ghostty +list-themes to fail. Users must manually download themes.

Consider including the theme database in the package or documenting this limitation.

https://github.com/terrapkg/packages/issues/6980#issuecomment-3467734558

[linear[bot]]

FYRA-410

[GildedRoach]

Hi, I package Ghostty.

I can't reproduce this.

Does this also happen if you uninstall just ghostty and install ghostty-nightly instead?

[pixincreate]

hi, thank you for the quick response. i'm able to reproduce this every time ever after re-installing. i'll try installing nightly once and revert back.

not exactly sure if this is due to kde version 6.5.1.

in fact, i did also try installing ghostty from copr repo and still, the results were same

but, since ghostty straight up works if it is not called via dbus, i do not feel like the issue arises from ghostty itself

[GildedRoach]

hi, thank you for the quick response. i'm able to reproduce this every time ever after re-installing. i'll try installing nightly once and revert back.

not exactly sure if this is due to kde version 6.5.1.

in fact, i did also try installing ghostty from copr repo and still, the results were same

but, since ghostty straight up works if it is not called via dbus, i do not feel like the issue arises from ghostty itself

I don't think this is something we can fix, then.

I still can't reproduce it. And reinstalling packages rarely helps on Linux.

The only thing I can suggest is trying ghostty-nightly instead and seeing if the issue persists. Normally suggesting a prerelease build would be far from something I suggest, but the Ghostty devs basically tell people to use those whenever they have issues so I guess that's all I can do as well.

[pixincreate]

i searched in the terra repo, it says ghossty-nightly is available. but in terminal, even after enabling terra-source, i'm unable to list ghostty-nightly, even dnf search ghostty does not list nightly versions. do i need to enable anything else explicitly?

its also kind of surprising to me this issue is not reproducible else where.. may i know in which machine did you try?

i'm currently on the latest one:

plasma: 6.5.1, qt version: 6.10, kernel: 6.17.6-300.fc43

[GildedRoach]

i searched in the terra repo, it says ghossty-nightly is available. but in terminal, even after enabling terra-source, i'm unable to list ghostty-nightly, even dnf search ghostty does not list nightly versions. do i need to enable anything else explicitly?

its also kind of surprising to me this issue is not reproducible else where.. may i know in which machine did you try?

No, you can simply run sudo dnf install ghostty-nightly if you remove ghostty.

Also I'm running Ultramarine 42, KDE Plasma 6.5.1. So in theory I should be hitting this as well.

[pixincreate]

ha, i did remove remove ghostty prior to installing ghostty nightly. to me, it just throws below error:

Failed to resolve the transaction:
No match for argument: ghostty-nightly
You can try to add to command line:
  --skip-unavailable to skip unavailable packages

but i can see ghostty-debugsource being listed tho

[GildedRoach]

ha, i did remove remove ghostty prior to installing ghostty nightly. to me, it just throws below error:

Failed to resolve the transaction:
No match for argument: ghostty-nightly
You can try to add to command line:
  --skip-unavailable to skip unavailable packages

Okay, that's...really, really bizarre. I thought we had at least one build of Ghostty nightly on F43 before its Zig requirement bumped. This is a problem, Fedora hasn't updated Zig yet so I can't push a new build of it either.

[pixincreate]

ouch! that makes sense. idk why i never thought about it.