Darktable runs - but I cannot see or access its UI

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 12:35pm

Hello,

It regularly happens to me that I press the darktable icon to start it. Often darktable’s UI comes up normally and I start to work. But not always.

When this happens darktable is active as it’s process is visible in the System Monitor. It is functioning as it makes thumbnails in the background when needed. But I cannot access it. What I do is kill the darktable process and start anew. Usually it then works OK.

I have no trustworthy recollection about how or when this behavior started.
Does anybody know this and how to correct this?

Kind regards, Jetze

I’m on Ubuntu 24.04.3 // darktable 5.3.0+892~g3de2c7950f // I run darktable from a AppImage

Popanz · November 28, 2025, 1:45pm

How do you start the appimage? From terminal? If so, there should be output to help you finding the reason. If there is not enough output, the next step is to start it with the debug option (common should be enough I hope):
-d common

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 4:30pm

Will do so, had already thought about it when ‘walking the dog’…
Thanks, kind regards, Jetze

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 5:47pm

20251128_1740.darktable_output.txt (66.6 KB)

I started darktable from CLI with the same command as is in the .desktopfile and added ‘-d common’ to it: "/home/jetze/.config/Darktable-PPR-AppImage/Darktable.AppImage" --configdir ~/.config/darktable-productie/ -d common

This time it did show its UI and after a short while I closed darktable with Ctrl-Q. I do not know if I can provoke the same behaviour in this way so will play around and start darktable a couple of times to see if I can.

Output at Opening darktable

Compile options:
Bit depth → 64 bit
Exiv2 → 0.28.7
Lensfun → 0.3.2
Debug → DISABLED
SSE2 optimizations → ENABLED
OpenMP → ENABLED
OpenCL → ENABLED
Lua → ENABLED - API version 9.6.0
Colord → ENABLED
gPhoto2 → ENABLED
OSMGpsMap → ENABLED - map view is available
GMIC → ENABLED - Compressed LUTs are supported
GraphicsMagick → ENABLED
ImageMagick → DISABLED
libavif → ENABLED
libheif → ENABLED
libjxl → ENABLED
LibRaw → ENABLED - Version 0.22.0-PreRC1
OpenJPEG → ENABLED
OpenEXR → ENABLED
WebP → ENABLED

See resources | darktable for detailed documentation.
See Sign in to GitHub · GitHub to report bugs.

 0.0020 [dt starting]

/tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/bin/darktable --configdir /home/jetze/.config/darktable-productie/ -d common
0.0033 application_directory: /tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/bin
0.0034 darktable.datadir: /tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/share/darktable
0.0036 darktable.plugindir: /tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/darktable
0.0037 darktable.localedir: /tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/share/locale
0.0037 darktable.sharedir: /tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/share
0.0046 darktable.configdir: /home/jetze/.config/darktable-productie
0.0046 darktable.cachedir: /home/jetze/.cache/darktable
0.0046 darktable.tmpdir: /tmp
0.0047 new_xdg_data_dirs: (null)
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libproxy/libpxbackend-1.0.so: undefined symbol: g_once_init_leave_pointer
Failed to load module: /tmp/.mount_Darktanbjpdf/usr/lib/gio/modules/libgiolibproxy.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/libgvfscommon.so: undefined symbol: g_task_set_static_name
Failed to load module: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgvfsdbus.so
Gtk-Message: 17:37:45.315: Failed to load module “canberra-gtk-module”
Gtk-Message: 17:37:45.316: Failed to load module “canberra-gtk-module”
0.0957 [init] moving database into new XDG directory structure
5.4483 [dt_worker_threads] using 7 worker threads
6.7924 [dt_configure_runtime_performance] found a sufficient 64-bit system with 32024 Mb ram and 12 cores
6.7924 [dt_get_sysresource_level] switched to `large’
6.7924 total mem: 32024MB
6.7924 available mem: 21891MB
6.7924 singlebuff: 500MB
6.7924 mipmap cache: 4003MB
6.8149 [opencl_init] opencl disabled via darktable preferences
6.8153 [opencl_init] opencl library ‘libOpenCL’ found on your system and loaded, preference ‘default path’
6.8157 [opencl_init] 0 platforms detected, error: Unknown OpenCL error
6.8158 [opencl_init] FINALLY: opencl PREFERENCE=OFF is NOT AVAILABLE and NOT ENABLED.
6.9987 [dt_worker_threads] using 7 worker threads
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/libgvfscommon.so: undefined symbol: g_task_set_static_name
Failed to load module: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgioremote-volume-monitor.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/libgvfscommon.so: undefined symbol: g_task_set_static_name
Failed to load module: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgioremote-volume-monitor.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/libgvfscommon.so: undefined symbol: g_task_set_static_name
Failed to load module: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgvfsdbus.so

Kind regards, Jetze

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 6:01pm

I was not succsesful provoking the “missing UI” by repeatedly (15 times) starting darktable from the CLI with the above command.

Will now add -d common to the desktopfile in use and see if I may reproduce the situation while having terminal output.

Kind regards, Jetze

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 6:14pm

Mmmm… thought I was clever to add

‘-d common >> /home/jetze/Downloads/outputfile.txt’

to the command in the .desktopfile in order to get output in a file as I do not use the CLI now to start darktable.

But no file is being made… what it is that I miss…

I’m surely no Linux or computer expert

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 6:38pm

I did find two darktable text files in /tmp, no idea if they are related at all…
darktable_bt_QT9GG3.txt (24.8 KB)
darktable_bt_062MG3.txt (22.2 KB)

Which leaves me rather clueless for any further actions…

Popanz · November 28, 2025, 7:21pm

I don’t know what logs darktable is writing into /tmp. But these are not the ones we need.
If you compare it to the output you posted above, when you started from cli, you see it is a completely different output. There you can see your environment and errors when trying to load modules.

I’m not a coder, but usually I get enough information from this output, to get an idea what’s wrong.

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 8:07pm

Well I may try to but it’s a bit beyond my knowledge. What I did find was this: a) .so is a shared library and b) at Several warnings/failures on launching DT appimage · Issue #19713 · darktable-org/darktable · GitHub which reports the same errors as above.

For whatever reason my AppImage may not be complete? Is that the right conclusion?

But it is far from sure this cause the behavior I report as @RawConvert does not report this at GitHub.

Popanz · November 28, 2025, 8:12pm

Your appimage starts so it is compatible. That there are some errors is not necessarily a problem. You need the output from a run, where it doesn’t start properly. Everything else is just guessing.

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 8:45pm

You’re right. The question is how to make darktable when started as an AppImage write a log_file / or where it writes the log_file.

I’ve checked the document where darktable’s files are but haven’t come up with more than the above.

The good thing of course is that dt does work and I managed to process a bunch of pictures in the meantime.

Popanz · November 28, 2025, 8:49pm

Just start it from console until you get the error. If you are lazy, start it via script.

wpferguson · November 28, 2025, 9:28pm

Those are crash reports. When darktable crashes on linux it tries to write a report to /tmp

Jetze · November 28, 2025, 10:00pm

Thanks Bill,

do you happen to know how I may gather this sort of output when using an AppImage and starting it through a Desktopfile. I failed there.

Otherwise I will easily follow @Popanz advise and start from CLI. But I have the idea this behavior where no UI comes up might find it’s cause somewhere around the Desktopfile as I could not provoke it by starting darktable quite often via CLI.

Kind regard, Jetze

wpferguson · November 29, 2025, 4:58am

That I do not know. I had one laying around and tried starting from the command line with debugging flags and didn’t get any output.

Sulphur · November 29, 2025, 9:45am

To get a detectable logfile you can do the following (path and name of the appimage I took from one of your previous posts):

Open a terminal.
Go to the place where your appimage resides.
cd /home/jetze/.config/Darktable-PPR-AppImage
Start your appimage like this.
./Darktable.Appimage -d common >/tmp/dtlog.txt 2>&1
Stop darktable
Now the logfile named dtlog.txt should sit in /tmp

Jetze · November 29, 2025, 10:39am

Thanks @Sulphur, this gives me the same result as yesterday in the sense that when starting darktable from CLI I get the required output.

What I hope to accomplish is a little different: I want to change the exec line in de Desktopfile so that I get this output. And there I cannot get it to work.

My exec line is like this now:
Exec=“/home/jetze/.config/Darktable-PPR-AppImage/Darktable.AppImage” --configdir ~/.config/darktable-productie/ -d common >/tmp/dtlog.txt 2>&1

And I do not get output.

The contents of the whole Desktopfile for clarity

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Darktable-productie
GenericName=Virtual Lighttable and Darkroom
Comment=Organize and develop images from digital cameras
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Categories=Graphics;Photography;GTK;
TRANSLATORS: Search terms to find this application. Do NOT translate or localize the semicolons! The list MUST also end with a semicolon!
Keywords=graphics;photography;raw;
Exec=“/home/jetze/.config/Darktable-PPR-AppImage/Darktable.AppImage” --configdir ~/.config/darktable-productie/ -d common >/tmp/dtlog.txt 2>&1
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=false
MimeType=application/x-darktable;image/x-dcraw;image/x-adobe-dng;image/x-canon-cr2;image/x-canon-crw;image/x-fuji-raf;image/x-kodak-dcr;image/x-kodak-kdc;image/x-minolta-mrw;image/x-nikon-nef;image/x-nikon-nrw;image/x-olympus-orf;image/x-panasonic-rw;image/x-panasonic-rw2;image/x-pentax-pef;image/x-sony-arw;image/x-sony-sr2;image/x-sony-srf;image/jpeg;image/png;image/tiff;image/x-portable-bitmap;image/x-portable-graymap;image/x-portable-pixmap;image/x-portable-floatmap;image/vnd.radiance;image/avif;image/x-canon-cr3;image/x-exr;image/aces;image/heif;image/heic;image/hej2k;image/avci;image/jp2;image/jxl;image/webp;image/qoi;image/fits
Icon=darktable
StartupWMClass=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/darktable.svg
X-Unity-IconBackgroundColor=#252525

kofa · November 29, 2025, 11:16am

Redirecting output to a file is a shell feature, I don’t think it will work from a shortcut.

Jetze · November 29, 2025, 12:05pm

Thanks István! I will try another multitude of times to see if I can reproduce this with having output. Kind regards.

Sulphur · November 29, 2025, 5:36pm

Oh well, .desktop files can be nasty. Next stab …

Got to KDE system menu > Edit applications (or the GNOME et al pendent)
Create a new entry dtn like this:

cd /home/jetze/.local/bin
Create a text file dtn here, containing 2 lines:
#!/bin/bash
/home/jetze/.config/Darktable-PPR-AppImage/Darktable.AppImage --configdir ~/.config/darktable-productie/ -d common >/tmp/dtlog 2>/tmp/dterrors
Make dtn executable with
chmod 750 dtn
When you invoke dtn via system menu, you should find now two logfiles under /tmp:

dtlog (darktable log -d common) and
dterrors (error messages from stderr)

At least, that works for me …
[Edited: removed superfluous quotation mark]