Crash (SIGTRAP) when bell-features = audio and GStreamer playbin3 is missing

[philippedev101]

Issue Description

Ghostty crashes with a core dump the moment a terminal bell is triggered with bell-features = audio configured. The last log line before the crash is:

GstPlay: 'playbin3' element not found, please check your setup

The crash happens because Ghostty calls gtk_media_file_new_for_filename() to play the audio, which goes through GTK → GStreamer's GstPlay → needs playbin3. That element lives in gst-plugins-good, which isn't in Ghostty's NixOS runtime closure. When gst_play_new() can't find it, the process traps instead of handling the error.

Checking Ghostty's nix closure confirms the gap:

$ nix-store -qR $(which ghostty) | grep gst
gstreamer-1.26.5
gst-plugins-base-1.26.5
gst-plugins-bad-1.26.5
# gst-plugins-good is missing

This was noted in PR #2231: "GTK needs to have access to GStreamer and the 'base' and 'good' plugins or it crashes when you try to play a sound" — but no runtime check was added and gst-plugins-good wasn't included in the NixOS package deps.

The crash has happened multiple times across sessions (from coredumpctl list):

2026-03-13 11:58:15  SIGSEGV  44.1M
2026-03-18 14:05:31  SIGSEGV   8.7M
2026-03-21 10:50:46  SIGTRAP  10.8M
2026-03-21 10:53:07  SIGTRAP   8.0M

Expected Behavior

If playbin3 isn't available, Ghostty should log a warning and skip audio playback instead of crashing. Something like checking gst_element_factory_find("playbin3") before proceeding.

On the packaging side, gst-plugins-good should probably be added to Ghostty's NixOS runtime deps alongside base and bad.

Actual Behavior

Ghostty crashes immediately (SIGTRAP, core dump) when a bell character is received.

Reproduction Steps

1. On NixOS, where gst-plugins-good is not in Ghostty's runtime closure.
2. Add the config below.
3. Open Ghostty.
4. Run printf '\a'.
5. Ghostty crashes.

Ghostty Logs

GstPlay: 'playbin3' element not found, please check your setup
systemd-coredump: Process 469999 (.ghostty-wrappe) of user 1000 dumped core.
systemd: app-com.mitchellh.ghostty.service: Main process exited, code=dumped, status=5/TRAP
systemd: app-com.mitchellh.ghostty.service: Failed with result 'core-dump'.

Stack trace (crashing thread):
#0  syscall (libc.so.6)
#1  g_cond_wait (libglib-2.0.so.0)
#2  gst_play_constructed (libgstplay-1.0.so.0)
#3  g_object_new_internal.part.0 (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#4  g_object_new_valist (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#5  g_object_new (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#6  gst_play_new (libgstplay-1.0.so.0)
#7  gtk_gst_media_file_open (libgtk-4.so.1)
#8  gtk_media_file_set_file (libgtk-4.so.1)
#9  object_set_property (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#10 g_object_new_internal.part.0 (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#11 g_object_new_valist (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#12 g_object_new (libgobject-2.0.so.0)
#13 gtk_media_file_new_for_filename (libgtk-4.so.1)
#14 n/a (.ghostty-wrapped + 0x12e3e74)

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.2.3

Version
  - version: 1.2.3
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.14.1
  - build mode    : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : apprt.Runtime.gtk
  - font engine   : font.main.Backend.fontconfig_freetype
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.OpenGL)
  - libxev        : io_uring
  - kernel version: 6.19.2
  - desktop env   : gnome
  - GTK version   :
    build         : 4.20.3
    runtime       : 4.20.3
  - libadwaita    : enabled
    build         : 1.8.3
    runtime       : 1.8.3
  - libX11        : enabled
  - libwayland    : enabled

OS Version Information

NixOS 26.05.20260217.0182a36 (Yarara), kernel 6.19.2

(Linux only) Display Server

Wayland

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

GNOME (GTK 4.20.3, libadwaita 1.8.3)

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

bell-features = audio
bell-audio-path = /path/to/any/audio/file.mp3
bell-audio-volume = 1.0

Additional Relevant Configuration

N/A — this is purely a Ghostty + GStreamer issue. No other programs are involved.

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[pluiedev]

Did you install this via the Flake or Nixpkgs? In case of the latter, please open an issue on the Nixpkgs repo instead

[pluiedev]

Ah, this seems to be faulty packaging on Nixpkgs.

❯ nix-store -qR (realpath ./result/bin/ghostty) | grep gst
/nix/store/mk3db6i5w5g4b1bdwrcwp0ys4cypk51n-gstreamer-1.26.5
/nix/store/kgf6zn39f6mxg0l3hjx29rpg7a0y3viv-gst-plugins-base-1.26.5
/nix/store/x6adcywj0fgd4air162d1pphzh8cjvqn-gst-plugins-bad-1.26.5

Versus the flake:

❯ nix-store -qR (realpath ./result/bin/ghostty) | grep gst
/nix/store/mci7fmm4knhi78y79lhpd95sxdpqmiv4-gstreamer-1.26.5
/nix/store/k98dlpanhvcr17yg71rllrx0fmmaxfb4-gst-plugins-base-1.26.5
/nix/store/qi6h533qphkvkanx7wlmvj0wnm72rbrh-gst-plugins-bad-1.26.5
/nix/store/d20jggdy16wqrqbprpgli39n3yqz4dvv-gst-plugins-good-1.26.5

I'll go ahead and open an issue there. Actually I think I'll just PR this directly since I'm one of the maintainers there too :)

[pluiedev]

@philippedev101 Could you test if NixOS/nixpkgs#502010 works for you?

[philippedev101]

Hey thanks for the fix (i didn't test it yet). But shouldn't ghostty detect on runtime that this thing is missing rather than crash hard?