unity7: LauncherEntry API does not work due to snapd not respecting the upstream .desktop naming

Metadata

Project: snapcraft (launchpad)
Number: #1652441
Type: issue
State: open
Author: ~mvo
Labels: —
Created: 2016-12-24 01:51 PM UTC
Updated: 2025-11-04 02:28 PM UTC
Closed: —

Current evaluation

Unity 7 LauncherEntry progress bar fails because snapd renames snap .desktop files, breaking application:// URI resolution. Open since 2016 with no labels or maintainer interaction; Unity 7 is EOL.

Suggested action: close stale

Reason: The bug is ~9.7 years old (3537 days) with 0 comments, no labels, and no maintainer interaction, and the last activity 300 days ago appears to be an automated sync rather than engagement. Crucially, the affected platform Unity 7 was dropped by Ubuntu in 16.04 in favor of GNOME, so the LauncherEntry API and its progress-bar behavior are no longer applicable to supported desktops; the fix would also have lived in snapd, not this project.

Impact: 10 Quick Win: 4.5 Staleness: 95 Complexity: 55 Confidence: 80 Support Request: 10

Issue body

The progress bar is not displayed. Probably get_for_desktop_id() returns the wrong desktop file. I could trace it back until here: https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~unity-team/libunity/trunk/view/head:/src/unity-launcher.vala#L193 however I have no idea how the "application://" part is resolved. For the example code triggering this see here: https://git.launchpad.net/teatime/tree/teatime.py#n207 (snap install teatime) Note that if the deb version is also installed. i.e. the /usr/share/applications/teatime.desktop file is present. The snap picks that one.

Evaluation history

Date	Model	Scores	Action	Summary
2026-09-01 07:37 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.8-27b	Impact: 10 Quick Win: 4.5 Staleness: 95 Complexity: 55 Confidence: 80 Support Request: 10	close stale	Unity 7 LauncherEntry progress bar fails because snapd renames snap .desktop files, breaking application:// URI resolution. Open since 2016 with no labels or maintainer interaction; Unity 7 is EOL.
2026-07-23 11:50 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 45 Confidence: 92 Support Request: 15	close stale	Bug report about Unity 7 LauncherEntry API failing to display progress bars due to snapd not respecting upstream .desktop naming conventions. Issue is over 9 years old with no maintainer interaction.
2026-07-22 12:18 PM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 35 Confidence: 92 Support Request: 20	close stale	LauncherEntry API progress bar fails due to snapd desktop file resolution mismatch. Issue is nearly 10 years old, has no maintainer interaction, and relates to deprecated Unity 7.
2026-07-09 08:00 PM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 95 Complexity: 60 Confidence: 85 Support Request: 10	close stale	Unity 7 LauncherEntry API progress bar fails due to snapd ignoring upstream .desktop naming. Unlabelled, no maintainer comments, inactive for 247 days, and relates to the deprecated Unity 7 desktop environment.
2026-06-20 09:15 PM UTC	test-model	Staleness: 40 Complexity: 30 Confidence: 60 Support Request: 50	needs triage	This is a sufficiently long test summary to pass validation.

Update history

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Related issues

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