I DID IT! Thanking the people over at bugs.gnucash SO much. I copied the gnucash.desktop file from home to .local, opened it in a text editor, and changed line EXEC= from whatever it said to Exec=/usr/bin/env WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 gnucash %f and then i made good notes about what I did, for future reference :-) when I now click on the icon for gnucash it works.
Teeny misteak though. Someone in a forum who was trying to help me with this suggested in uninstall the flatpak version and install the ...regular? version. I don't know what is PC to call this version, maybe the non-flatpak version? Anyway, of desperation I did this without realizing all my saved report configurations would be deleted along with the program. This is on my desktop computer. I have them on my laptop version of gnucash, which is a flatpak. My question is, how might I uninstall the version on my desktop and *replace* it with the very same program off of my laptop? Is that a possibility? Seems like it could be. And then all my saved reports would be back? A teeny other detail...When replacing what it said on the EXEC= line, I couldn't tell you what it used to say before I changed it. I tried going to the laptop and looking for that particular file there. However, i can not find the path where the gnucash.desktop file is saved, so i can't copy it to the .local folder, which I also can't find. I did find it through a search; there is probably only one .local folder, and because I hadn't put a copy of gnucash.desktop in it in the past, there wasn't one there. And finally, what is meant by gnucash.desktop? On my laptop would it be something different, or is this a different meaning of the word desktop? So many gnubie questions. If you care to provide me answers, feel free to give only the ones that matter? lol. Thanks in advance, ugh. You all are amazing. Julie On Tue, Oct 20, 2026 at 11:41 AM Julie G <[email protected]> wrote: > O man, this is exciting. I feel so very close, yet so far. Responses in > line: > > On Mon, Oct 19, 2026 at 1:49 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=799095 > > > > --- Comment #37 from John Ralls <[email protected]> --- > > Julie, > > > > The advice you got last February was probably to set > > WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 > > in your environment. There are several ways to do that. The most > > straightforward is to launch GnuCash from a terminal window with > > WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 gnucash > > > > That's certainly the easiest way to test whether it will work for you. A > new > > workaround for more recent releases of WebKitGtk surfaced last month: > > WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 > > You would test that the same way. Another user on Mint 22.2 reported > success > > with that on the gnucash-user mailing list: > > > https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2026-September/121848.html > I went to this link and followed the instructions as best i could, but > have some questions (which might explain why it didn't quite work). here > is what I ultimately did: > > I did a search for .desktop files in home/julie and I saw gnucash.desktop. > I copied it from its folder and pasted it into > home/julie/.local/share/applications/gnucash.desktop. > > Then I opened it (gnucash.desktop) in a text editor and changed the Exec= > whatever it said to exactly this: > > Exec=/usr/bin/env WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 gnucash %f > > The link referenced above obviously gave general instructions, but didn't > really explain in painful detail how someone with the basic, basic skill > level I have would know which Stuff is general and what to replace it with, > specifically. But, I took some stabs at it. Various tries made the > reports come back. Currently, after some subsequent stabs at trying to > make the temporary fix permanent, the reports are now a black screen and > the system freezes. > > Thinking this is because I don't have something precisely correct, I mess > around with the particulars, trying to hit on something that works. A > needle in a haystack. > > Last thing I did was chang the Exec=whatever it said before to this: > > WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 /usr/bin/gnucash > > My plan now is to send this to you, take a long break where I will do a > lot of Big Important Fancy Real Work. When I come back, I intend to check > back with you to see if you have any clues. After that, my Bright Idea is > to ...hmmm. I thought you referenced some other https: links but I don't > see those here currently. I intend to comb through all these links and > advice again and try to find something that works, of course! > > > > > If either of those work for you then you'll want to set them in your > > gnucash.desktop file. This Arch Wiki article explains how: > > > https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_entries#Modify_environment_variables > >I went here and followed this as best I could... > > Finally there's bug 799816, where we found that WebKitGtk chokes on > .woff font > > bundles. There are instructions there for preventing them from loading > and > > regenerating your font cache. > I have not done this and don't know what it means... or whether it > pertains to my issue. > > > > > For future reference I've added an FAQ entry: > > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Reports_are_blank. > I looked at this when I was trying to get the Exec= line just right. > > Crossing fingers that today might be the day I solve this! If it's > possible, I could really use the positive turn. It would be a much needed > bright spot in what has been a really shitty year! Everyone's got to take > a turn. > > THANK YOU!!!!! > > Julie > > > > > -- > > You are receiving this mail because: > > You are on the CC list for the bug. > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
