Since I didn’t have a chance to really edit any images I don’t have any data to backup.
So I deinstalled Darktable and reinstalled it again. Nothing changed - Darktable wouldn’t start. Same error message.
I have installed Darktable on my Windows laptop and it seems to work perfectly, which surprises me, since Darktable originates from Linux.
As you my see I have given up. I am not a tech savy person and certainly not in Linux. And I guess Sisyphos will get his stone to the top of the mountain before I get Darktable to work in Linux.
Sorry for taking so much of your time without any rewarding result.
I think you must have some sort of corruption in the database(s) or settings files. The reason why things didn’t change when you reinstalled is because all the same settings and databases are still there, since those files are user data, they are not deleted when the application is uninstalled.
If you want to give it one more chance (I understand if you don’t!) then you have to remove the settings files for the darktable flatpak. They’re located in ~/.var/app/org.darktable.Darktable, so you’d need to issue the command rm -rf ~/.var/app/org.darktable.Darktable.
I’m here to help you, no need to apologize.
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Only two questions, you’re running a 32.Bit system,the Darktable Flatpack is also 32 Bit?
And why don’t use the Version form the repository of your distribution?
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Linux Mint ships flatpak by default in their software center, so it is likely this was installed “from the distribution.”
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The remnants of my education forbid me to comment
I don’t understand your comment, sorry.
My opinion on Flatpack is here off topic. But I rather suspect a flaw in the flatpack creation than in darktable.
Sorry to zombie this thread, but I’m in the same situation and was hoping to find an answer. Was this ever resolved?
In my case I had been using Darktable and after a couple of updates it won’t start any more. I get a wait cursor then nothing, no error message.
I’ve deleted and reinstalled Darktable but I get the same result. I assume it because the database/config files are not removed on deinstallation. What files/folders should I delete? I’m not concerned about any photos/edits etc. I don’t have anything I need to keep/preserve in Darktable. I’m a Linux Mint NOOB so explicit commands would be appreciated.
Thanks,
What version of darktable and what kind of package? Deb package, snap package, or flatpak package?
It is whatever is in Synaptics Library, I think it is version 2.6.2. Not sure about snap or flatpack.
Thanks,
Provided your config and database is in ~/.config/darktable do the following in an xTerm
cd ~/.config
mv darktable darktable.bak
darktable
I confirmed the version number in Software Manager is 2.0.3-1
cd ~/.config
mv darktable darktable.bak
darktable
Got me this:
[defaults] found a 64-bit system with 2023956 kb ram and 2 cores (0 atom based)
[defaults] setting very conservative defaults
… then nothing
I deinstalled darktable and re-did the ‘rm darktable darktable.bak’ and the darktable folder is gone Did the same for entangle (tethering program) just in case it was in conflict
$ darktable
Gives me this:
[defaults] found a 64-bit system with 2023956 kb ram and 2 cores (0 atom based)
[defaults] setting very conservative defaults
[init] the database lockfile contains a pid that seems to be alive in your system: 2862
[init] the database is locked, probably another process is already using it trying to open the images in the running instance
Any suggestion on what try next?
Restart, then do this:
cd ~/.config
rm -rf darktable
darktable
I tried that (confirmed directory is gone with ls ) and got:
[defaults] found a 64-bit system with 2023956 kb ram and 2 cores (0 atom based)
[defaults] setting very conservative defaults
… then nothing
I opened another term window and ran
pgrep -l darktable
which returns
2481 darktable
So it looks like it is running but no gui
I have since upgraded to 2.4.4 via a ppa, but I’m getting the same results I had with the earlier version.
If I run darktable again I get the error:
the database lockfile contains a pid that seems to be alive in your system: 2481
Which is the pid of the first instance instantiated but running without a giu.
The lock file message means that darktable didn’t exit cleanly. There are files in ~/.config/darktable that are library.db.lock and data.db.lock.
Not sure why darktable isn’t starting.
cd ~/.config
rm -rf darktable
darktable -d all
That gets me:
an error has occurred while trying to open the database from
/home/jason/.config/darktable/data.db
the database lock file seems to be empty
Thanks for your help on this. Rather frustrating to have it working one day and dead the next…
You need to rm ~/.config/darktable/data.db.lock
At the moment I’m typing on my phone, sorry for not that nice formatting…
I get the feeling, dt is somehow still running, by the time we delete or move the ~/.config/darktable
OR
it gets started either
-automatically or
-with parameters we don’t see here
To check this try the following:
ps aux | grep darktable
alias | grep darktable
actually above with your pgrep you found that. So killing dt prior moving away it’s config is essential
sudo kill “process number”
… after that and being sure there is no alias and no other autostart and also being sure there is only one installation of dt on your machine, try again to move or delete ~/.config/darktable
Ok so I have single stepped this to confirm dt is starting but not displaying a gui
Removed app icon pinned to start panel
Restart
Uninstalled dt
Restart
rm -rf ~/.config/darktable
Restart
pgrep -l darktable (to confirm not running)
Installed dt
Restart
pgrep -l darktable (to confirm not running)
Run dt - wait cursor for about 10 seconds, nothing on screen or panel Alt-Tab just to make sure it isn’t off screen somewhere
pgrep -l darktable (which returns a pid of 2551)
So , despite best efforts I’m where I started. Thanks all for your help. Is there another forum where I could take this?
@Area51Resident your last question could be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Especially some(if not all) darktable developers are here 
However, you might bring it to a MINT- or an UBUNTU-Forum, AFAIK your MINT is UBUNTU-based.
Maybe that is actually a good idea, as dt acc. to my experience is rock solid and the issue might be somewhere else…
We may still try some things together…
→ It looks to me know dt is starting but the GUI crashes or is broken in any other way. ←
I never saw something like this on my machine but I would expect, if you start dt -d all on a terminal, you would get helpfull feedback
e.g. in my case, because I have git-master installed in parallel I geth this:
~ $ darktable -d all
[memory] at startup
[memory] max address space (vmpeak): 271212 kB
[memory] cur address space (vmsize): 271212 kB
[memory] max used memory (vmhwm ): 16708 kB
[memory] cur used memory (vmrss ): 16708 kB** (darktable:30395): WARNING **: 04:57:06.441: Couldn’t register with accessibility bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
[init] database version of `library.db’ is too new for this build of darktable. aborting
ERROR : cannot open database
If by what ever reason, we see here, you have a very old dt-version, then pls. spend what ever it takes, to get at least darktable-2.4.4 on hand
Than still some other analysis (btw. now might be the time to start a crisp list, what have been done so far, not to all details but basic steps)
- pgrep -l darktable (make sure is not running)
- if so, pls.
- kill -9 xxxx (where xxxx is th PID you got above)
- in a terminal type darktable --version
→ geths me here:
~ $ darktable --version
this is darktable 2.6.2
copyright (c) 2009-2019 johannes hanika
darktable-dev@lists.darktable.orgcompile options:
bit depth is 64 bit
normal build
SSE2 optimized codepath enabled
OpenMP support enabled
OpenCL support enabled
Lua support disabled
Colord support disabled
gPhoto2 support enabled
GraphicsMagick support disabled
OpenEXR support enabled
After you are sure, dt is not running (pgrep), pls try from a terminal
- darktable -d all (and report back the full output)
Besides I am still waiting, you type alias in a terminal and tell us, whether in the list you may get, you find darktable.
I am not familiar with MINT since I use gentoo. Google tells me, there is synaptics, as a GUI for apt-get. Anyway:
- could you try to installed dt like so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAWEm7m5uo8 ??
(gives you the chance to see messages in between). - also I am not sure at all, how your distro guarantees that all dependencies are updated prior installation.
- so can you make sure, your system is up-to-date or at least all dt-relevant packages are up-to-date (especially gtk+ shall be >=3.14
Here is acc. to my system (maybe not everything relevant for you!) the list af all deps:
BDEPEND="
dev-util/intltool
virtual/pkgconfig
nls? ( sys-devel/gettext )
"
COMMON_DEPEND="
dev-db/sqlite:3
dev-libs/json-glib
dev-libs/libxml2:2
dev-libs/pugixml:0=
gnome-base/librsvg:2
>=media-gfx/exiv2-0.25-r2:0=[xmp]
media-libs/lcms:2
>=media-libs/lensfun-0.2.3:0=
media-libs/libpng:0=
media-libs/tiff:0
net-libs/libsoup:2.4
net-misc/curl
sys-libs/zlib:=
virtual/jpeg:0
x11-libs/cairo
>=x11-libs/gtk±3.14:3
x11-libs/pango
colord? ( x11-libs/colord-gtk:0= )
cups? ( net-print/cups )
flickr? ( media-libs/flickcurl )
geolocation? ( >=sci-geosciences/osm-gps-map-1.1.0 )
gnome-keyring? ( >=app-crypt/libsecret-0.18 )
gphoto2? ( media-libs/libgphoto2:= )
graphicsmagick? ( media-gfx/graphicsmagick )
jpeg2k? ( media-libs/openjpeg:2= )
opencl? ( virtual/opencl )
openexr? ( media-libs/openexr:0= )
webp? ( media-libs/libwebp:0= )
"
I am sure, we make it run, -one day 
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