Bug 740032 – net-im/element-desktop-bin: large .org.chromium.Chromium.xxxxxx leftovers in /tmp

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description Holger Hoffstätte 2020-09-02 08:01:54 UTC]

element-desktop is Electron-based and creates multi-MB files named .org.chromium.Chromium.xxxxxx in /tmp. This alone wouldn't matter, but these files remain after the app has terminated, so starting/quitting the app several times quickly wastes a huge amount of space.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. start/quit element-desktop
2. find many duplicated .org.chromium.Chromium.xxxxxx leftovers in /tmp

Actual Results:  
Garbage leftovers in /tmp.


Expected Results:  
No leftovers.

As can be seen from the upstream report this was closed due to a lack of reproducibility, despite the fact that it can be readily reproduced with
current versions. I'll attach the mentioned wrapper script that I wrote when I still had my own element-desktop ebuild in my overlay; it would be great if this wrapper could be added to the Gentoo ebuild.

[Comment 1 Holger Hoffstätte 2020-09-02 08:07:24 UTC]

Created attachment 657878 [details]
Wrapper script to create/delete a temp dir

This wrapper script creates a temporary directory for element-desktop and deletes it after the actual element application has terminated. I'm sure it's not perfect (maybe needs proper signal handling) but it's a start and works for me and a friend. Right now I have this in /opt/bin, but it could also replace the symlinks
in /usr/bin.

[Comment 2 Stefan Strogin 2020-12-02 12:43:00 UTC]

Hi Holger. Thanks for the report. Have you reported it to the upstream as well? Because I feel it might be not Gentoo-specific issue.

[Comment 3 Holger Hoffstätte 2020-12-02 13:34:56 UTC]

(In reply to Stefan Strogin from comment #2)
> Hi Holger. Thanks for the report. Have you reported it to the upstream as
> well? Because I feel it might be not Gentoo-specific issue.

Check the last comment on the linked URL? :)
I haven't reported it to Element though since it's clearly an Electron issue.

[Comment 4 Holger Hoffstätte 2021-06-09 15:41:31 UTC]

Someone reported this at Element:
https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/17188

[Comment 5 PF4Public 2022-04-17 10:16:43 UTC]

Not only reported, but also proposed a fix, but they are very slow to act ;)
https://github.com/vector-im/element-desktop/pull/337

[Comment 6 Paweł Metelski 2022-07-30 14:06:31 UTC]

Upstream patch merged into v1.10.11, so perhaps this is now resolved?

[Comment 7 Holger Hoffstätte 2022-07-30 15:56:39 UTC]

Thanks for the notice - it is indeed fixed upstream.