Whatsapp desktop not opening

dsl · 19 March 2025 00:07

hello guys i installed Ubuntu mate i installed whatsapp desktop but i got issue while opening the app i install it by deb file
sudo apt install ./Downloads/whatsapp-desktop-x64.deb

i install it on debian it's worked

stephematician · 19 March 2025 04:49

APT is for installing from repositories. What happens when you run:

dpkg -i --dry-run ./Downloads/whatsapp-desktop-x64.deb

Then try (if the output from the previous command looks reasonable):

sudo dpkg -i ./Downloads/whatsapp-desktop-x64.deb

You can also open the .deb file with GDebi, and install via its GUI.

lah7 · 19 March 2025 10:53

I'm not seeing an error in your screenshot. It appears to have installed but is just showing a warning "unsandboxed as root" which I get on mine.

Does the program show up in the Menu and does it run?

apt can install package files too, as long as it starts with ./ - it's better at resolving dependencies I think.

dsl · 19 March 2025 11:23

it's installed but no't opened i press on it showing the icon on the plank dock only

stephematician · 19 March 2025 11:25

Run it from the terminal; you might get some useful error output.

dsl · 19 March 2025 11:50

i installed by

dpkg -i --dry-run ./Downloads/whatsapp-desktop-x64.deb

sudo dpkg -i ./Downloads/whatsapp-desktop-x64.deb

how to run it from terminal?

lah7 · 19 March 2025 20:09

From looking at the package contents, this command runs the program:

/opt/whatsapp-desktop/WhatsApp

dsl · 20 March 2025 20:22

i got this issue the icon it's showing like this only and it's no't open

lah7 · 20 March 2025 21:26

Based on the output, it would like you to run these commands to fix the permissions to what it expects:

sudo chown root /opt/whatsapp-desktop/chrome-sandbox
sudo chmod 4755 /opt/whatsapp-desktop/chrome-sandbox

Then it should run after that.

stephematician · 20 March 2025 22:53

Is this an artefact of using APT to install the package? I've never had this problem with permissions with .deb files when using other install methods (e.g. dpkg or gdebi).

lah7 · 21 March 2025 16:32

Seems more of a problem with the deb package. It should specify or have a post-install script to set the permissions, if it needs them. Seems this SUID sandbox is an old way of doing things in Electron^[1] (what this app is using).

This whatsapp-desktop-x64.deb doesn't install on 24.04 (missing gconf2 dependency). The project hasn't seen a new release since 2022.

apt works better then dpkg since it won't try to install if it can't resolve dependencies. Shouldn't really matter which method is used to install.

dsl · 24 March 2025 10:10

thank you it's worked