DiscordChatExporter is now installable as a Flatpak (via FlatPark)

[jing2uo]

Hi @Tyrrrz,

I maintain FlatPark (https://github.com/jing2uo/flatpark), a small community hub that provides Flatpak installs for Linux apps that aren't on Flathub.

I've packaged DiscordChatExporter there: https://flatpark.org/apps/me.tyrrrz.DiscordChatExporter/

A few things I want to be upfront about:

• It uses Flatpak extra-data, so it downloads your official linux-x64.zip release unmodified at install time and automatically tracks your future GitHub releases. I don't rehost, repackage, or patch your binary.

• I noticed the Flathub submission (PR #8171) was closed over the AI-generated manifest — so this gives Linux users a working Flatpak in the meantime.

Install:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flatpark https://dl.flatpark.org/flatpark.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flatpark me.tyrrrz.DiscordChatExporter

One small packaging note in case it's useful to you: the app writes Settings.dat next to its own binary, which is read-only inside the Flatpak sandbox and crashes on startup. Your DISCORDCHATEXPORTER_SETTINGS_PATH env var solved it cleanly — I just point it at the writable per-app config dir.

I also noticed you maintain other Avalonia desktop apps in the same style (e.g. YoutubeDownloader) that aren't on Flathub either. They'd fit the exact same packaging recipe, so I'd be glad to add them too — but only with your blessing, and only the ones you're comfortable seeing distributed this way.

If you'd rather I not list any of these, just say so and I'll take them down right away. And if you're happy for them to stay, I'll add a "developer-approved" badge to their FlatPark pages. Either way — thanks for the great tools, and I hope this helps your Linux users.

[Tyrrrz]

Thanks @jing2uo!

Yes, I was previously trying to get DCE on Flathub, but they have a strict stance against software developed with AI assistance. I personally disagree with that rule, at least because DCE has been around since 2017, way before coding agents were a thing, and discarding it on the same principle as apps that were entirely vibe-coded seems unnecessarily prejudiced.

As a matter of fact, both DISCORDCHATEXPORTER_SETTINGS_PATH and DISCORDCHATEXPORTER_ALLOW_AUTO_UPDATE were added to facilitate better ergonomics for packing this app (although the second variable doesn't do anything on Linux).

Please feel free to make a PR to add the package installation instruction to the readme, similar to others.

I also noticed you maintain other Avalonia desktop apps in the same style (e.g. YoutubeDownloader) that aren't on Flathub either. They'd fit the exact same packaging recipe, so I'd be glad to add them too — but only with your blessing, and only the ones you're comfortable seeing distributed this way.

Sure, I don't mind.

[jing2uo]

Thank you for being so open about third-party packaging of your Avalonia apps — I really appreciate the trust.

I've packaged YoutubeDownloader as a Flatpak on FlatPark, alongside DiscordChatExporter which is already up. Both are built straight from your official release zips (unmodified, extra-data), and each entry notes that it's published with your permission, linking back to your reply here.

App page: https://flatpark.org/apps/me.tyrrrz.YoutubeDownloader/

Whenever you have a spare moment, I'd be grateful if you could try both apps and let me know whether everything works as expected — I've done my own testing, but I almost certainly haven't exercised every feature, so any issues you spot would be really helpful.

And if you ever feel it's appropriate to mention FlatPark somewhere, that would mean a lot — no pressure at all. Thanks again for making these tools, and for being so welcoming about the packaging.

[Tyrrrz]

@jing2uo getting this error

[jing2uo]

Fixed and published. Both apps should install now:

flatpak install flatpark me.tyrrrz.DiscordChatExporter
flatpak install flatpark me.tyrrrz.YoutubeDownloader

It was my bug, not your release. Here's what happened, since the error message gave you nothing to work with.

exit status 256 is a raw wait status rather than an exit code — it means my apply_extra script exited with 1. Two things in your screenshot narrowed it down: the download had completed (22,2 MB / 22,2 MB), and Flatpak verifies the extra-data SHA-256 before running apply_extra, so you were getting the correct zip byte-for-byte. And no output from my script appeared above Flatpak's error line — which meant you were installing system-wide, where apply_extra runs under flatpak-system-helper and its stderr goes to the journal instead of your terminal.

The cause was three things combining:

1. Your release zip carries Info-ZIP 0x7875 extra fields, so every member records uid=1001 gid=1001 — the GitHub Actions runner's uid. This is entirely normal; any zip produced on CI without fakeroot looks like this. Nothing to change on your end.
2. For a system-wide install, Flatpak runs apply_extra as root with --cap-drop ALL (flatpak-dir.c). Running as uid 0, bsdtar restores ownership by default, tries to chown each file to 1001:1001, and gets EPERM — CAP_CHOWN had been dropped.
3. libarchive counts a failed chown as a warning. Every file still extracted correctly, but bsdtar then exits 1 ("Error exit delayed from previous errors"), and my set -e turned that into a failed install.

Under --user the script runs as your own uid, bsdtar never attempts to restore ownership, and everything works. That was the only path I had ever tested — entirely my gap, and I've since added the system-install path to the packaging checklist.

The fix is bsdtar --no-same-owner, which makes the root and non-root paths identical.

It wasn't just DiscordChatExporter. Auditing the rest of the registry turned up six apps shipping artifacts built without fakeroot, all broken the same way for anyone not passing --user — including YoutubeDownloader (both ytd.zip and its bundled ffmpeg.zip, same uid 1001), plus three apps by other authors. One of them uses GNU tar, which treats the failed chown as a hard error and exits 2, so it was failing with exit status 512 — same bug wearing a different number. All six are fixed and republished (flatpark#85); each was verified by running its real apply_extra against its pinned artifact under uid 0 with all capabilities dropped.

So you didn't just find a DiscordChatExporter bug — you found one that had been quietly breaking a third of the registry. Thanks for taking the time to try it and report back.