Cant open links with Librewolf

[Saroufim]

Once it is set as the default browser, clicking on "open link" in another app fails to open a new tab with the link. It either says Librewolf is already running or it just opens the browser.

[lsfxz]

I've observed something like this before with Firefox on Wayland.

Assuming you're on Wayland, you could try overriding the .desktop file by creating ~/.local/share/applications/io.gitlab.librewolf-community.desktop with the following modified content (from the file from the flatpak package):

[Desktop Entry]
Name=LibreWolf
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=librewolf --file-forwarding io.gitlab.librewolf-community @@u %u @@
Icon=io.gitlab.librewolf-community
Type=Application
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;application/x-xpinstall;application/pdf;application/json;
StartupWMClass=LibreWolf
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Keywords=Internet;WWW;Browser;Web;Explorer;
Actions=new-window;new-private-window;profilemanager;
X-Flatpak=io.gitlab.librewolf-community

[Desktop Action new-window]
Name=Open a New Window
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --env=GDK_BACKEND=wayland --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=librewolf --file-forwarding io.gitlab.librewolf-community @@u %u @@

[Desktop Action new-private-window]
Name=Open a New Private Window
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --env=GDK_BACKEND=wayland --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=librewolf --file-forwarding io.gitlab.librewolf-community --private-window @@u %u @@

[Desktop Action profilemanager]
Name=Open the Profile Manager
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --env=GDK_BACKEND=wayland --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=librewolf --file-forwarding io.gitlab.librewolf-community --ProfileManager @@u %u @@

(or if you're running it directly via flatpak run --env=GDK_BACKEND=wayland ...).

There's been an explanation for this behaviour somewhere, I just don't have it at hand right now.

You usually don't want to set GDK_BACKEND=wayland everywhere else as some apps will fail with it (notably some older / non-ozone electron apps), and it can't be set for everyone in the flatpak release by default, because not everyone's using wayland.

If there's a better way around this, I'm all ears :)

[Saroufim]

This solved it indeed. Thanks a bunch.

[lsfxz]

I've just added a proposal to the FAQ concerning this issue (and how to fix it), which should be live with the next regular release.

Thanks for bringing it up! :)

[lsfxz]

Just as a followup to this: it seems that the "cleaner" solution to this would be to instead set MOZ_DBUS_REMOTE=1 everywhere (ie. in the .desktop file as well as in your environment "everywhere").

See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefox#Applications_on_Wayland_can_not_launch_Firefox and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1508803#c18. I'll reopen this for now just to remind me to update the FAQ wit it :)

[paveloom]

Solutions above don't seem to work on my end. See another report here.

[Anchor5178]

Experiencing same error as @paveloom on freshly installed elementaryOS 6

[paveloom]

See linux#256 (comment 740596927) for solution.

[lsfxz]

With Mozilla having dropped the MOZ_DBUS_REMOTE stuff and instead using d-bus as default if the running environment suggests it (and it's enabled during building it), this should "just work" nowadays.

A fix for the new issues with that was commited with 59fa1a92b52928eb8fb88dc293c480ba9d4b3b62, more details are also available in https://gitlab.com/librewolf-community/browser/flatpak/-/issues/13#note_814715875.

[elvybean]

Since installing Librewolf via Flatpak I was unable to open links from Obsidian (.deb), I used the fix recommended flatpak override --user --env=GDK_BACKEND=wayland io.gitlab.librewolf-community and this resolved my problem.

However I thought I should comment here anyway since the issue was closed and was presumed to no longer be an issue (at least that's what I gather from the last comment)