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Trash portal broken for all Flatpak apps (xdg-desktop-portal 1.20.4 regression)

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
68/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
linux
Domain
operating-systems

Research direction

Start with the installed xdg-desktop-portal version and the upstream regression tracked in issue 1972. Reproduce using the listed flatpak run --command=gio trash command and inspect /usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal verbose output; done means updating or backporting the fix and confirming that sandboxed apps can move files to trash.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Your system information

  • Steam client version: 1788652215
  • SteamOS version: 3.8.28
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Opted into SteamOS beta?: No
  • Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:
Flatpak apps cannot move files to the trash. Any trash request through the org.freedesktop.portal.Trash portal fails with "Trash portal failed on ". This affects files in /home as well as on the SD card, so it is not filesystem- or permission-specific. Trashing the same files on the host with gio trash works normally.

Running the portal in verbose mode (/usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal -v -r) logs:
XDP: Handling TrashFile
XDP: Failed trashing file: Failed getting the parent fd

This matches the upstream regression introduced by the fix for GHSA-rqr9-jwwf-wxgj, tracked at: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/issues/1972
Affected upstream versions include 1.20.4 and 1.21.1; it is reported fixed in 1.21.2, and distributions such as Ubuntu have backported the fix.

Installed packages:
xdg-desktop-portal 1.20.4-1.1
xdg-desktop-portal-kde 6.4.3-2
glib2 2.84.3-1
Test app runtime: org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/51 (io.github.cboxdoerfer.FSearch)

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Install any Flatpak app with filesystem access, e.g. io.github.cboxdoerfer.FSearch
  2. touch ~/testfile
  3. flatpak run --command=gio io.github.cboxdoerfer.FSearch trash ~/testfile
  4. Observe "gio: file:///home/deck/testfile: Trash portal failed on /home/deck/testfile"
  5. Outside the sandbox, gio trash ~/testfile succeeds.

Expected: the file is moved to the trash.
Requested fix: update xdg-desktop-portal to a release containing the upstream fix, or backport it to 1.20.x.

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