Gnome Shell fails to list some apps with .desktop files

[Paul Campbell]

VirtualBox does not show up anywhere in Gnome-shell as an application.

Wine doesn't show up anywhere in Gnome-shell as an application.

Those are two of the more egregious examples. I can run them from the command line. The .desktop entries clearly exist in /usr/share/applications. I've verified and reverified all the .desktop entries and checked them against the Gnome documentation to verify everything is correct. Yet it simply refuses to load these apps. A dump of the VirtualBox entry dumped below (even editted it to use absolute path).Similar problems with Wine which was installed via Ubuntu software so no reason for it to be rejected/disappear.

Ubuntu: 20.10
VirtualBox: Installed: 6.1.16-dfsg-6~ubuntu1.20.10.1 (from ubuntu Groovy repository)
Wine: Candidate: 5.0-3ubuntu1 (also from Groovy repository)

...so...all are pointing to the current repository (Groovy). I'm at a loss here even how to fix it since I can't really "upgrade" or "fix" the .desktop entry since nothing is wrong with those. They are just "ghosts" as far as Gnome-shell is concerned.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=VirtualBox
GenericName=PC virtualization solution
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/bin/VirtualBox
TryExec=VirtualBox
Keywords=virtualization;
Keywords[de]=Virtualisierung;
Keywords[ru]=виртуализация;
MimeType=application/x-virtualbox-vbox;application/x-virtualbox-vbox-extpack;application/x-virtualbox-ovf;application/x-virtualbox-ova;
Icon=virtualbox
Categories=Emulator;System;Utility;
Actions=Manager;
Comment=Run several virtual systems on a single host computer
Comment[de]=Mehrere virtuelle Maschinen auf einem einzigen Rechner ausführen
Comment[it]=Esegui più macchine virtuali su un singolo computer
Comment[ko]=가상 머신
Comment[pl]=Uruchamianie wielu systemów wirtualnych na jednym komputerze gospodarza
Comment[ru]=Запуск нескольких виртуальных машин на одном компьютере
Comment[sv]=Kör flera virtuella system på en enda värddator

[Desktop Action Manager]
Exec=VirtualBox
Name=Open Oracle VM Manager
Name[de]=Oracle VM Manager öffnen

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.38.2-1ubuntu1~20.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-41.46-generic 5.8.18
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-41-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu50.5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Feb 10 08:01:17 2021
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-08-07 (552 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Release amd64 (20190416)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RebootRequiredPkgs:
 linux-image-5.8.0-43-generic
 linux-base
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.38.2-1ubuntu1~20.10.1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to groovy on 2021-02-07 (3 days ago)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks for the bug report. I certainly can't find any other reports of this problem. The first thing to check is whether any of these extensions are causing side effects which might explain the bug:

'<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>', '<email address hidden>'

So please uninstall all of those, restart and retest. If the bug still occurs after that then please report it to the developers at: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues

[Paul Campbell (paul-nmedia-net)]

All extensions uninstalled. Reboot and same result.

So far I can tell the following desktop files fail to load and icons don't appear not only in the app launcher but also when I force them to boot (via shell) which does show the icons, clicking the "Favorites" doesn't do anything either.

Specific apps that clearly aren't loding: VirtualBox, the "generic" LibreOffice, and Wine. Maybe others but those are the most obvious.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks. Next please report the problem to the developers at:

   https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues

and then tell us the new issue ID.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-shell (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]