netbird-ui 0.75.0 crashes on Ubuntu/Pop!_OS 22.04 due to GTK 4.14-only gdk_monitor_get_scale symbol

[j007bond007]

Before posting

• I searched existing discussions and issues, including closed ones, and checked the relevant docs.
• I believe this is a product bug rather than a configuration or setup question.
• I can reproduce this issue, or for intermittent issues I've included trigger, frequency, and timing details below.
• I removed or anonymized sensitive data from logs, screenshots, and configuration.

Affected area

Desktop UI

Deployment type

Self-hosted - quickstart script

Operating system or environment

Linux

NetBird version and upgrade status

0.75.0

Did this work before?

Yes, this worked before

Regression details

.

Summary

After upgrading netbird-ui to 0.75.0, the desktop UI/system tray no longer starts on Pop!_OS 22.04.

The NetBird daemon itself continues to run and the peer remains connected normally. The issue appears isolated to the redesigned 0.75.0 desktop UI.

Launching netbird-ui manually results in the application initializing successfully, connecting to the running daemon, and then terminating with:

netbird-ui: symbol lookup error: netbird-ui: undefined symbol: gdk_monitor_get_scale

gdk_monitor_get_scale() was introduced in GTK 4.14, while Ubuntu 22.04 / Pop!_OS 22.04 provides GTK 4.6.9.

This appears to make the NetBird 0.75.0 Linux UI binary incompatible with Ubuntu 22.04 despite Ubuntu 22.04 being listed in the NetBird Linux support matrix.

Current behavior

UI won't load/no tray icon

The UI begins initializing:

INF Platform Info: ID=pop Name=Pop!_OS Version=22.04 Branding=22.04 LTS GTK=4.14.5 WebKitGTK=2.52.3
INF Build Info: Wails=v3.0.0-alpha2.117 ... netbird/version.version=0.75.0
INFO client/ui/tray_theme_watcher_linux.go:74: tray theme: panel dark mode = true
INFO client/ui/tray_icon.go:24: tray applyIcon: connected=false hasUpdate=false status="" goos=linux
INFO client/ui/tray_profiles.go:146: tray fillProfileSubmenu: 1 profile(s) for user "josh", active="default"
INFO client/ui/services/daemon_feed.go:400: backend event: status status="Connected" peers=16
INFO client/ui/tray_session.go:60: ... connected=true
INFO client/ui/tray_icon.go:24: tray applyIcon: connected=true hasUpdate=false status="Connected" goos=linux

Expected behavior

Desktop UI works

netbird-ui should run on Ubuntu 22.04 using the GTK version provided by the distribution, or the package should declare a minimum GTK dependency that prevents installation on incompatible distributions.

NetBird's Linux support matrix currently lists Ubuntu 22.04 as a tested distribution.

Steps to reproduce

Install NetBird using the official APT repository on Ubuntu 22.04 or Pop!_OS 22.04.
Upgrade netbird-ui to 0.75.0.
Start the NetBird daemon and connect normally.
Launch:
netbird-ui

Environment and topology

OS: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS
Base: Ubuntu 22.04 / Jammy
Architecture: amd64
netbird-ui: 0.75.0
GTK runtime: 4.6.9
NetBird daemon: running and connected normally

Installed GTK packages:

libgtk-4-1 4.6.9+ds-0ubuntu0.22.04.2
libgtk-4-bin 4.6.9+ds-0ubuntu0.22.04.2
libgtk-4-common 4.6.9+ds-0ubuntu0.22.04.2
libgtk-4-dev 4.6.9+ds-0ubuntu0.22.04.2

Self-hosted details, if available

No response

Logs, status output, or debug evidence

N/A

Related issues or discussions

No response

Impact

No response

Additional context

Why this appears to be a NetBird 0.75.0 regression

GTK documents:

gdk_monitor_get_scale()

as being available only since GTK 4.14.

Ubuntu 22.04 provides GTK 4.6.x through its supported repositories.

The official NetBird Linux installation documentation for the redesigned desktop application instructs Debian/Ubuntu users to install:

sudo apt-get install libgtk-4-1 libwebkitgtk-6.0-4 xdg-utils

On Ubuntu 22.04, that correctly installs GTK 4.6.x, but netbird-ui 0.75.0 subsequently attempts to resolve a GTK 4.14-only symbol at runtime.

Therefore either:

the Linux UI needs to avoid APIs newer than the minimum GTK version supported by the distributions NetBird supports, or
the package needs to require GTK >= 4.14 and the documented/support matrix needs to exclude distributions that cannot provide it.

Currently the package installs successfully on Ubuntu 22.04 but cannot execute.

[yhay81]

Your diagnosis is correct: this is an ABI compatibility regression in the 0.75.0 UI binary, not a daemon/configuration problem.

There are two source-level clues that line up exactly with the runtime error:

• the Linux release job runs on Ubuntu 24.04 and installs that runner's libgtk-4-dev before building the UI (release workflow);
• the UI packaging file itself describes its GTK4/WebKit stack as “Ubuntu 24.04+ / Debian 13+” (nFPM config).

Because the UI uses CGO, it is linked against the GTK ABI available in the build environment. Ubuntu 24.04 supplies GTK 4.14, so the resulting binary has a hard dynamic-symbol reference to gdk_monitor_get_scale. Jammy's GTK 4.6 loader cannot satisfy it and terminates the process before the UI can recover or feature-detect anything.

You can verify that independently with:

pkg-config --modversion gtk4
objdump -T /usr/local/bin/netbird-ui | grep gdk_monitor_get_scale
ldd /usr/local/bin/netbird-ui | grep -E 'gtk|gdk'

No application preference or reinstall of the same 0.75.0 package can fix this. I would not replace Jammy's system GTK with a PPA/manual copy; GTK and WebKitGTK are foundational desktop libraries and that risks breaking other packages.

Safe temporary options are:

1. Leave the 0.75.0 daemon running and manage it with netbird status/up/down; the UI is only a client of the daemon, which explains why the peer remains connected.

2. Downgrade only netbird-ui to the last working 0.74.7 build and hold that package until a compatible build is released:

   apt-cache madison netbird-ui
   sudo apt install 'netbird-ui=<the 0.74.7 version shown above>'
   sudo apt-mark hold netbird-ui

   If the repository no longer exposes that version, the official 0.74.7 release includes netbird-ui_0.74.7_linux_amd64.deb: https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/releases/tag/v0.74.7

3. Upgrade the OS to Ubuntu/Pop!_OS with GTK >= 4.14, if that is already planned.

For the project, the robust fix is to build Linux UI releases against the oldest supported distro/sysroot (currently Ubuntu 22.04 if the support matrix is authoritative) and add a Jammy launch smoke test. Building against an older GTK ABI normally lets the binary run on both old and new distributions. If Wails itself now unconditionally calls GTK 4.14 APIs, that call needs a runtime-gated fallback or a Wails version compatible with the chosen minimum.

If NetBird intentionally raises the minimum to GTK 4.14 instead, the package must declare a versioned dependency such as libgtk-4-1 (>= 4.14) and the 22.04 support/install documentation must be changed. The current GoReleaser package definition only depends on netbird, so APT has no way to reject the incompatible UI before installation (package config).

In short: 0.75.0 was built with a newer GTK ABI than Jammy provides; downgrading/holding the UI is the safe immediate workaround, and building against the minimum supported GTK is the backward-compatible release fix.

[pappz]

Hello!
The new UI application is using the Wails library. Unfortunately, the minimum expected GTK version is 4.14 at the moment. If you have a chance, I recommend upgrading the distribution.

[j007bond007]

Hello! The new UI application is using the Wails library. Unfortunately, the minimum expected GTK version is 4.14 at the moment. If you have a chance, I recommend upgrading the distribution.

Hi @pappz thanks for the confirmation. It might be worth considering an update to the documentation to state that Ubuntu 22.04 despite being an LTS release will not work - right now it says "Ubuntu 22.04+".

[jleary]

Hi @pappz, heads up, it might also be worth considering an update to the documentation stating that Debian 12 is also no longer supported as it also says "Debian 12+" currently.