[snap] no automatic wallpaper change on XFCE (Xubuntu 24.04 LTS Noble Numbat)

[Gilles GAIDO]

Hi,

I can install WallpaperDownloader 4.4.1 as a snap on a fresh Xubuntu 24.04 platform, it runs and downloads images into its own folder, but unfortunately the desktop wallpaper is not changing.

Here is my platform :

• Xubuntu 24.04 LTS Noble Numbat (kernel 6.8.0-31-generic) https://xubuntu.org/release/24-04/
• XFCE 4.18 (GTK 3.24.41)
• Snapd 2.62

In addition :

• the wallpaperdownloader.sh was NOT added automatically to the “session and startup” list
• the folder configured into the “desktop settings” has NOT been updated

(on my old Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS with XFCE 4.16 the WallpaperDownloader 4.3 snap was installed some months ago and it is still working fine, even if upgraded to 4.4.1 now, I have noticed that the script /bin/sh /snap/wallpaperdownloader/31/bin/wallpaperdownloader.sh was added automatically to the “session and startup” list, the folder configured into the “desktop settings” was updated too)

Thank you for your help.

Regards

[Eloy García Almadén]

Hi Gilles and thank you very much for your feedback.

Question: Did you upgrade from Xubuntu 22.04.4 or is it a fresh install?

Thanks!

[Eloy García Almadén]

Sorry! I have just read again your message and I see that the problem is present on a fresh Xubuntu 24.04. I will spin up a virtual machine and see what happens. I’ll keep you informed. Thank you very much.

[Gilles GAIDO]

Hi Eloy, thank you for your message, yes I confirm that is is a fresh install (not an upgrade from 22.04.x). Have a nice day. Best regards.

[Eloy García Almadén]

Hi again!

‌

Ok, here I’m going with some new investigation. First question: are you sure that WallpaperDownloader could change your wallpaper in the previous version of Xubuntu? It could be, but the version you had installed couldn’t be from the snap store. Due to some restrictions with the snap format, I had to disable this functionality in 2016 for XFCE if the application was installed via snap (it is working fine if you install it natively though). After recalling this, I thought that maybe you had installed the application via PPA or even Flatpak BUT, the last version published in the PPA was 4.4.1 and thanks to the tests I’ve been doing these days, I have discovered that the Flatpak version is not working in XFCE either.

So I have to work on this. Maybe the restrictions imposed by the snap format back in 2016 are not restrictions anymore. I’ll check it out. And we have to find the Flatpak problem too.

I’ll keep you inform about all of this. Thank you very much!

Regards.

[Gilles GAIDO]

Hi,

here are the answers :

• wallpaper’s automatic change : you’re right, I set the XFCE’s desktop automatic change feature instead because the feature is not available as a snap (and I guess it has never been available on my platforms)
• i did not use a flatpak, I could not find it, and i did not use a PPA neither
• i’ve forgotten that I have added “wallpaperdownloader” to the session and startup programs list ( the command registered automatically by snap was “/bin/sh /snap/wallpaperdownloader/32/bin/wallpaperdownloader.sh” and it seems not to work )

‌

XFCE’s desktop automatic change feature
regular run (as snap)
debug run ( ran thru command line with a custom target folder, into /tmp to provide full permissions ) export SNAP_USER_DATA=/tmp/wallpaper export SNAP=/snap/wallpaperdownloader/32 /bin/sh /snap/wallpaperdownloader/32/bin/wallpaperdownloader.sh

best regards

‌

[Gilles GAIDO]

copy/paste altered the linefeeds, here are the 3 lines

export SNAP_USER_DATA=/tmp/wallpaper

export SNAP=/snap/wallpaperdownloader/32

/bin/sh /snap/wallpaperdownloader/32/bin/wallpaperdownloader.sh

[Eloy García Almadén]

Hi again Gilles and thank you very much for all this information.

After some new research and several attempts to make the snap version of WallpaperDownloader to work I have to say that the situation nowadays is the same. This is an old problem that I reported to the snapcraft community some years ago: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/snapcraft/2016-November/001495.html

So sadly, at the moment, WallpaperDownloader have some features not supported for KDE and XFCE desktop environments via snap package. I see two options for you:

‌

• You can continue using the snap version of WallpaperDownloader and enable the natively changer of XFCE (as you did before).
• Remove the snap package and install the Flatpak version of WallpaperDownloader which supports all these features even in KDE and XFCE. First, you have to prepare Ubuntu for using Flatpaks: https://flathub.org/setup/Ubuntu Then install WallpaperDownloader https://flathub.org/apps/es.estoes.wallpaperDownloader

‌

I hope this help and thank you very much for your time and feedback.

Best wishes,

Eloy

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[Gilles GAIDO]

Hi Eloy,

That s fine, I will keep on using the snap version of WallpaperDownloader and the XFCE native wallpaper changer.

Thank you very much for your time and deep investigations.

Best regards,

Gilles