Linux AppImage: .DirIcon broken absolute symlink prevents installation via app-manager

[mattbell87]

Bug Report

Version: v1.1.1 (and all prior releases)

Problem

Installing the Linux AppImage via AppManager (app-manager) fails with:

Install failed: Symlink target not found: home/runner/work/krillnotes/krillnotes/target/release/bundle/appimage/Krillnotes.AppDir/Krillnotes.png

Root Cause

Inside the AppImage, .DirIcon is a broken absolute symlink hardcoded to the CI build runner path:

.DirIcon -> /home/runner/work/krillnotes/krillnotes/target/release/bundle/appimage/Krillnotes.AppDir/Krillnotes.png

It should be a relative symlink pointing to Krillnotes.png (which does exist in the AppImage root). app-manager reads .DirIcon to extract the app icon during installation, follows this symlink, and fails because the absolute path does not exist on the user's machine.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Download Krillnotes_1.1.1_amd64.AppImage
2. Run app-manager install Krillnotes_1.1.1_amd64.AppImage
3. Installation fails with the above error

Expected Behaviour

The AppImage installs successfully. .DirIcon should be a relative symlink: Krillnotes.png

Fix

The .DirIcon symlink is generated by linuxdeploy/appimagetool during the CI build. The release workflow needs a post-processing step in .github/workflows/release.yml to correct the symlink before the AppImage is packaged — e.g. rewriting .DirIcon as a relative symlink inside the AppDir before appimagetool runs.

Affected files: .github/workflows/release.yml

[careck]

the CI code is using the Tauri build process, so not sure how much control we have over how the image is built. Maybe check the Tauri project as well.

[mattbell87]

I found the upstream bug in tauri-bundler, tracked at tauri-apps/tauri#15110 and tauri-apps/tauri#15374.

The bundler creates .DirIcon as an absolute symlink pointing to the CI runner's build path instead of a relative one. There are two fix PRs (#15141, #15404) but neither has been merged yet as of tauri-bundler v2.9.2.

In the meantime we can work around it in .github/workflows/release.yml with a post-build step that:

1. Extracts the AppImage (--appimage-extract)
2. Replaces the broken .DirIcon with a relative symlink (ln -sf Krillnotes.png squashfs-root/.DirIcon)
3. Repacks with appimagetool

Once the upstream fix is merged the workaround will still be safe to keep in place. It will just overwrite an already-correct symlink with the same value, so no harm done.