"Allow Launching" for Desktop file not there

Hello,

I have to seek out this forum for I problem I have. I couldn't find a topic with the same issue yet.

Problem:
Deskop shortcuts are generally untrusted. If I try to launch it, a message pops up telling me to right click on the shortcut and then click "Enable "allow Launching"

The problem is, when I right click on the icon, I do not see that option.
However, may it be a previous installation or not, I do remember seeing that option at some point.

Question now is what am I doing wrong or is my OS already broken?

PS: Sorry for the picture, but you can't make a screenshot with the right-click dropdown menue open, it seems.

You need to select 'Eigenschaften' (Properties). When that opens, select 'Berechtigungen' (Permissions) tab and check the box that allows the shortcut to be executable.

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Click on ''Eigenschaften'' an in the opening Window, you go to the ''Zugriffsrechte'' Tab and there You look for this:

You have to mark that and then it should work.

You can, but You have to use the prnt-Button (die druck Taste) on Your Keyboard.

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that's not the problem unfortunatly

(the print button didn't work with the right-click dropdown open)

Please open up a terminal and run the following commands, one at the time, and share the output:

ls -l $HOME/Desktop/Baldur*
cat $HOME/Desktop/Baldur*

You will find the terminal in the main menu, along other applications. Also, how did you create this shortcut exactly?

Hmm ... I tested it and it worked:

But okay, because of Your Shortcut: Was it automatically created or did You created it manually? I find it a bit weird that it is a .desktop File directly on the Desktop.

This is an issue when using Xorg, but not on Wayland. The only alternative that I'm aware of is to set a delay, and open the context menu. This does require using a separate utility, however, as the default screenshot that is built into the Gnome shell doesn't support that. But anyway, a topic for another day.

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Hey there, the Allow Launching will not show up in some instances, such as a bad command on the Exec line in the .desktop file. Once you fix it, the Allow Launching will show. Not sure that's your issue but worth double checking.

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Sorry for late response

jim@jim-X570-AORUS-ELITE:~/Schreibtisch$ ls -l $HOME/Schreibtisch/Baldur*
-rwxrwxr-x 1 jim jim 179 Nov 19 07:02 "/home/jim/Schreibtisch/Baldur's Gate 3.desktop"
jim@jim-X570-AORUS-ELITE:~/Schreibtisch$ cat $HOME/Schreibtisch/Baldur*
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Baldur's Gate 3
Comment=Play this game on Steam
Exec=steam steam://rungameid/1086940
Icon=steam_icon_1086940
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Game;

Shortcut was created by Steam via the option to create a desktop shortcut after installing.

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@j_luz is right on the money. If you installed Steam through the Software store, the only package format available is Flatpak. This means that the Exec line inside the .desktop file needs to be adjusted:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Baldur's Gate 3
Comment=Play this game on Steam
- Exec=steam steam://rungameid/1086940
+ Exec=flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam steam://rungameid/1086940
Icon=steam_icon_1086940
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Game;

You can obtain the exact identifier for a Flatpak package by running flatpak list:

Once you do that, you should be able to see the Allow Launching option (before and after)


By the way, I just found that what actually controls this "Allow launching" setting is a field in the metadata of the file itself. This can be queried with:

gio info "Baldur's Gate 3.desktop" | grep trusted

and changed with:

gio set "Baldur\'s\ Gate\ 3.desktop" metadata::trusted true

Although it will still error out if you don't point the Exec line to the right location; in this case, the Flatpak executable.

I didn't install steam via the software manager, as the flatpak packaging messed with the compatibility of ALVR. I checked that the exec-line works.

I don't really understand the second part of your answer. I did do that, but it didn't change anything...

jim@jim-X570-AORUS-ELITE:~/Schreibtisch$ gio info "Baldur's Gate 3.desktop" | grep trusted
  metadata::trusted: true
jim@jim-X570-AORUS-ELITE:~/Schreibtisch$ gio set "Baldur's Gate 3.desktop" metadata::trusted true

I do honestly thing there is something broken on my OS, it's not only the steam games, even when I go into the start menu and put stuff from there directly on the desktop I also don't get the "Allow Launch" option...

Ok we can test that quickly. On your desktop make a new text file. Paste this into it:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Zorin Help
Exec=bash -c "xdg-open https://zorin.com/help/ && xdg-open https://forum.zorin.com/"
Type=Application
Terminal=false

Now save it. Now rename it: test.desktop
Now right click Properties/Permissions and check the box Allow to execute and then close the dialogue. Now right click it. If you do not now see an Allow Launching, yes your computer is broken.

I wonder if the whitespace in the name of the file has something to do with. On a terminal:

mv $HOME/Desktop/"Baldur's Gate 3.desktop" $HOME/Desktop/Baldur.desktop

Even with this change, once the file is flagged as trusted, the original filename show appear.

Welp, I guess I somehow mangled my OS, yet again... :sweat_smile:

Allow to execute still doesn't show up.

From here on, I guess I move on to try Fedora now. Zorins lack of HDR support also as shown as a bit of a dealbreaker recently. It's a bit of a shame, Zorin really looked like it could be the distro for me.

Maybe I come back to this. In case a fresh install of Zorin fixes it I will make sure to post it here.

Thanks for all the help!

PS: How does one quote someone on this forum?

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Assuming you have a Reply box open, just highlight the text in a post that you want to quote, then hit "Quote". It will then be added to your Reply.

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When You mark Text with Your Mouse Cursor, you get a Choice what to do with it:

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Don't worry, I think mangling your OS is a rite of passage in Linux.

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Undoubtful true.

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Alright, one last reply. After a little detour I realized I really don't like the KDE environment and went back to Zorin. That fresh install also solved the issue it seems, the allow start is back now.
Would be good to know how I nuked that the last time to know what not to do, but we'll never find out what caused it to bug out, I guess.

Again, thanks for the help.

PS: I actually deleted windows by now, since it acted up ever since installing Linux as a second OS. Maybe I try installing it in a VM for compatibility reasons, who knows.

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