Vivaldi Refuses to Launch on Ubuntu

Novax69x

Vivaldi doesn't launch on my Ubuntu-equipped systems. I tried DEB and Flatpak, packages, but same behavior on both X11 and Wayland sessions.

I had deleted any files and folders in Home with the word "Vivaldi" before reinstalling, but it didn't help. I also tried installing older builds of Vivaldi, but the same thing happens.

I am able to easily run other apps that are offered as DEBs.

I have faced this on two separate computers, one was running Ubuntu 22.04, and the other 24.04.

DoctorG

@Novax69x Start in shell and tell

error messages in shell
errors in syslog at time of starting Vivaldi

Novax69x

@DoctorG Any pointers as to how I can do that?

DoctorG

@Novax69x to get error while starting Vivaldi in shell:

Start app Terminal
Menu > System Tools > LXTerminal
Type command vivaldi
hit Return key
Copy the error message
paste here in reply

DoctorG

@Novax69x If that fails to start, try a test profile:
vivaldi --user-data-dir="/tmp/testviv123"

If that works, somesthing broken in your original browser profile.

Now try to run your original browser profile (which failed) without extensions:
vivaldi --disable-extensions

If that fails try:
vivaldi --disable-extensions --disable-gpu

DoctorG

@Novax69x said in Vivaldi Refuses to Launch on Ubuntu:

I also tried installing older builds of Vivaldi, but the same thing happens.

Downgrade can cause broken browser profile which results in unpredicable and unfixable issues.

Novax69x

@DoctorG I don't have LXTerminal, I use the default GNOME terminal, when I try to run any one of the commands you mentioned, nothing happens, just a blank terminal window.

Edit: This happens on the Ubuntu 24.04 system. The other 22.04 PC is non-functional at the moment, so can't test on that.

Novax69x

@Novax69x Another thing to note is that the Vivaldi installation on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS was done on a fresh Ubuntu install, other DEBs didn't give me any issues.

ph0

Hello,

Same issue here

I just installed Xubuntu minimal 24.04, and my first action was to install vivaldi-stable (6.7.3329.31-1 from the deb repo).

Once installed, I tried to start it from the application menu but nothing happened.
A ps -ef showed me that something was happening as I could find multiple processes running for Vivaldi (I'm on another PC as snap is messing with me so I can't use Firefox & Chromium either, as usual with snap).
After killing all processes (I also removed ~/.config/vivaldi*), I tried from the terminal, I got a (not at first attempt I think):

'Proprietary media' support is not installed. Attempting to fix this now.
Downloading...

I killed the process after 20 mn since it didn't seem to do much. Also, chromium-ffmpeg-codecs-extra is already installed.

I tried to start it wih --user-data-dir, --disable-extensions, --disable-gpu but same outcome.

I tried with both vivaldi-stable and vivaldi-snapshot.

I checked AppArmor's configuration and Vivaldi seemed to be correctly defined.

And finally, I couldn't find anything in /var/log, except some audit logs of AppArmor.

Thanks!

npro

@Novax69x @ph0

The procedure is simple:

start vivaldi in terminal
search the internet for whatever error you are getting

I wouldn't use apparmor/selinux. They create more "harm" instead of what extreme cases (for a typical, average user) they are supposed to protect imo.

darksatanic

I'm getting the same behaviour: A completely fresh Debian 12 install, with the vivaldi-stable_6.7.3329.35_1_amd64.deb download.

I've installed with

# apt install vivaldi-stable_6.7.3329.35_1_amd64.deb

which brought in one other package.

Running

$ vivaldi-stable

in the terminal simply hangs. No window on the screen, no output in the terminal. There are several related processes in the output of ps: a vivaldi-bin at the top, with children: two cats, and several more vivaldi-bins. There's also two instances of chrome_crashpad_handler that look like they belong to Vivaldi.

In journalctl output, I get this when I try to start Vivaldi:

May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: received BeginPrompting call from callback /org/gnome/keyring/Prompt/p27@:1.0
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: preparing a prompt for callback /org/gnome/keyring/Prompt/p27@:1.0
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: creating new GcrPromptDialog prompt
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: automatically selecting secret exchange protocol
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: generating public key
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: beginning the secret exchange: [sx-aes-1]\npublic=Rfs5DrUkHNbRw0zvuB4w4XN0pJqRr6+XamEF9hK+DILSMl+mz+ey8mAUuwT2cu4troxos3U9Nz3biE0CI/hf93hRALePyvEd3yIBTBNvQ1g4eKUazN0ujOjf8Rw/1sBzZMbzkbk4ndvqjqemF/QL0SPGtf0lCGWcT87SPb0CBK3PGPXfIscq2Fme2ZSBhoW7s/hSpX86QwiVkLiDAv9Jh18y9Ev/bKyI+9mz7NICqGsj8CaQkyt6zZIcj/jVOI8=\n
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: calling the PromptReady method on /org/gnome/keyring/Prompt/p27@:1.0
May 25 15:18:11 mhari gcr-prompter[11221]: Gcr: returned from the PromptReady method on /org/gnome/keyring/Prompt/p27@:1.0

so this suggests to me that it's trying to get me to put in a password, but that for some reason it's not putting up a prompt.

[edit to add:]

I guess there's some missing package I should have had installed to provide the password prompt, but I don't know what it should be.

darksatanic

@darksatanic ... and it's now working. I don't know why, or what package got installed to make it work, but it does now.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

DoctorG

@darksatanic Congrats.
Enjoy using Vivaldi now.

npro

@npro said in Vivaldi Refuses to Launch on Ubuntu:

I wouldn't use apparmor/selinux. They create more "harm" instead of what extreme cases (for a typical, average user) they are supposed to protect imo.

I found this by chance AppArmor user namespace creation restrictions cause many applications to crash with SIGTRAP

How do they say it? OMG! Ubuntu?

ingolftopf

Linux is a wonderful operating system.
With many possibilities and options.
No comparison to Windows.

But sometimes you get tangled up in the pool of conveniences.

But thanks to this forum, the excellent, competent help of @DoctorG and @npro, like now, these are very often solved quickly.

If not, they stay on the ball for longer.

ingolftopf

@Novax69x, @ph0, @darksatanic
Welcome to the 'Vivaldivers'.
Have fun here, with the Vivaldi Browser and maybe also on Vivaldi's own 'Mastodon' instance, social.vivaldi.net

Novax69x

Update: I switched to 22.04 on my laptop, and Vivaldi seems to work just fine. I am still not sure what happened with 24.04, and my previous installation on the desktop running 22.04.

npro

@Novax69x have you disabled apparmor as a test there? Seems like many applications have (or had) a problem with that in 24.04, this could include Vivaldi.

If not disabling it you could try another test, running it with vivaldi-stable --no-sandbox (not generally advised).

Novax69x

@npro I would, sadly I can't use the desktop at the moment. Will give it a try when it is back up.

ph0

@darksatanic said in Vivaldi Refuses to Launch on Ubuntu:

@darksatanic ... and it's now working. I don't know why, or what package got installed to make it work, but it does now.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

Hi,
Same behavior. After a few unrelated restarts the following days, it started working without any reasons. So problem solved for me.

FYI, before that, I stopped apparmor, and it didn't change anything, Vivaldi just wouldn't start (even with sandbox).

Finally, I installed EndeavourOS because I wanted an Arch-flavored distrib, so no more on Ubuntu...