Flatpak updates give messages

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1

Hi, I did a dnf update just now and there was nothing to update. Then I typed flatpak update which gave me the following result:

flatpak update
Looking for updates…

Info: runtime org.freedesktop.Platform branch 23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
   org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this runtime:
   org.mozilla.Thunderbird

Info: runtime org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default branch 23.08-extra is end-of-life, with reason:
   org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this extension:
   org.mozilla.Thunderbird

Info: runtime org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default branch 23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
   org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this extension:
   org.mozilla.Thunderbird


        ID                                     Branch       Op      Remote       Download
 1. [✓] org.clementine_player.Clementine       stable       u       flathub       14,8 kB / 26,1 MB
 2. [✓] org.kde.okular.Locale                  stable       u       flathub        1,5 kB / 17,0 MB
 3. [✓] org.kde.okular                         stable       u       flathub      429,3 kB / 50,2 MB

Updates complete.

I thought flatpaks would take care of their own dependencies and runtime environment. How is it possible that I apparently have a newer Thunderbird but I have to update the environment? How do I even do that, using flatpak update or through dnf?
Thanks.

2

They do. And Flatpaks can depend on specific versions of a runtime. The issue with Thunderbird is that it depends on a version that has reached EOL a little while back.

You can’t do much to fix this, I am afraid. In a case like this, which happens regularly with different Flatpaks, different runtimes, and different older versions, a Flatpak needs to be updated to use a newer version of its runtime(s). And it is the people who publish the Flatpak, in this case the Thunderbird developers, who need to do that. If you want to support them, you could write an issue in the Mozilla Bugzilla to let them know. But after that, you need to wait for the update from them.

I get the same message, but since I don’t have a Mozilla Bugzilla account, I had decided to wait and see for a few weeks. (I have too many bugtracker accounts for far too many projects already.)

2 Likes
3

There were long discussions here on the forums whether it’s ok or not that Flathub allows apps to be updated with EOL runtimes.

FWIW, Betterbird, based on the same ESR version as Thunderbird, points to a newer (not EOL) runtime:

$ flatpak remote-info flathub eu.betterbird.Betterbird

Betterbird - A better version of Thunderbird

        ID: eu.betterbird.Betterbird
       Ref: app/eu.betterbird.Betterbird/x86_64/stable
      Arch: x86_64
    Branch: stable
   Version: 140.3.1esr-bb12
   License: MPL-2.0
Collection: org.flathub.Stable
  Download: 120.9 MB
 Installed: 330.7 MB
   Runtime: org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/24.08
       Sdk: org.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/24.08

    Commit: 78b85c93d44befb025a7d525a9630f5460fdd2d823ea9d87422fde902a14df46
    Parent: 9e9f765fb607206090d6386cbe6e26d2b54b49591a3c73ce0cd3ef0e858a7db7
   Subject: Update to 140.3.1esr-bb12-build2 (#250) (f5f1385e1b7f)
      Date: 2025-10-01 12:59:31 +0000

I haven’t used it, so cannot really recommend it.

4

I have tried installing Betterbird twice in the last year or so and I never could get it to work, where Thunderbird just installs and it works. No idea what goes wrong, why it doesn’t install.
In the past week I got an Thunderbird update (140.3.1esr) but apparently no new runtime. Well, the old one is still working, but an updated runtime would be nice.

1 Like
5

Flatpaks and rpm packages are separate from each other and thus, cannot interact with one another.

Flatpaks do take care of their dependencies. The message you’re seeing simply informs you that the app depends on the EOL runtime (i.e. group of packages that apps can depend on, instead of providing all their dependencies themselves). Like others said, you can’t do much here, aside from informing the Thunderbird contributors of the issue. Hope my answer helps :slight_smile:

7

I’m getting this on a whole slew of packages:

Info: (pinned) runtime org.kde.Platform branch 6.7 is end-of-life, with reason:
We strongly recommend moving to the latest stable version of the Platform and SDK
Info: applications using this runtime:
com.retro_exo.falkon, com.retro_exo.okular

Info: (pinned) runtime org.kde.Platform branch 5.15-23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
We strongly recommend moving to the latest stable version of the Platform and SDK
Info: applications using this runtime:
com.retro_exo.vlc

Info: (pinned) runtime org.gnome.Platform branch 46 is end-of-life, with reason:
The GNOME 46 runtime is no longer supported as of April 17, 2025. Please ask your application developer to migrate to a supported platform.
Info: applications using this runtime:
com.retro_exo.abiword, com.retro_exo.gnumeric

Info: (pinned) runtime org.freedesktop.Platform branch 23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this runtime:
com.retro_exo.dosbox-074r3-1, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4301, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4358, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4482, com.retro_exo.dosbox-gridc-4-3-1, com.retro_exo.mpv, com.retro_exo.wine

Info: runtime org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel branch 23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this extension:
com.retro_exo.dosbox-074r3-1, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4301, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4358, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4482, com.retro_exo.dosbox-gridc-4-3-1, com.retro_exo.mpv, com.retro_exo.wine, com.retr
o_exo.abiword, com.retro_exo.gnumeric, com.retro_exo.vlc, com.retro_exo.falkon, com.retro_exo.okular

Info: runtime org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default branch 23.08-extra is end-of-life, with reason:
org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this extension:
com.retro_exo.dosbox-074r3-1, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4301, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4358, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4482, com.retro_exo.dosbox-gridc-4-3-1, com.retro_exo.mpv, com.retro_exo.wine, com.retr
o_exo.abiword, com.retro_exo.gnumeric, com.retro_exo.vlc, com.retro_exo.falkon, com.retro_exo.okular

Info: runtime org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default branch 23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this extension:
com.retro_exo.dosbox-074r3-1, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4301, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4358, com.retro_exo.dosbox-ece-r4482, com.retro_exo.dosbox-gridc-4-3-1, com.retro_exo.mpv, com.retro_exo.wine, com.retr
o_exo.abiword, com.retro_exo.gnumeric, com.retro_exo.vlc, com.retro_exo.falkon, com.retro_exo.okular

Info: (pinned) runtime org.freedesktop.Platform.Compat.i386 branch 23.08 is end-of-life, with reason:
org.freedesktop.Platform 23.08 is no longer receiving fixes and security updates. Please update to a supported runtime version.
Info: applications using this extension:
com.retro_exo.wine

8

Looks like the publishers of those Flatpaks need to update them to use a currently supported runtime.

9

Yeah… frankly I don’t understand the 2020’s fascination with flatpaks. Why are the newbies using them so religiously? I’m sure they have some utility somewhere, but it seems they’re more of a ballache than anything… not sure why these are even on my system (besides the dosbox stuff.)

10

Me neither, they are not something that you would see on a typical Fedora install. They’re not Fedora Flatpaks (obviously) and they don’t seem to come from Flathub either?

flatpak history | grep retro_exo should tell you something about when and how you installed them.

11

Let me quote my previous reply on this topic:

When you posted your Flatpak output, I have two questions:

  1. What did you think we would be able to do about it?
  2. What Flatpak remote is this? Flathub does not have an ID com.retro_exo.okular.

Because of question #2, I suggest you figure out what remote you installed these from and then complain to the maintainers of those applications on that remote to update their dependencies.

What’s with the ‘newbie’ dig? I am far from a a newbie and Flatpaks do have their uses. And frankly, if you don’t like Flatpaks, why did you install them?

12

I had the same issue but with WPS office.
it was complaining for a month, and i just de-installed it hoping to reinstall shortly, as these messages are a bit annoying.

13

Oh… yeah that “exo” and “dosbox” stuff is the only flatpak I manually installed. It looks like most of my “errors” are related to that. Didn’t see it at first, sorry! But yeah, to me it seems like flatpaks were meant to solve dependency hell for people who didn’t know how to solve those problems, but now are seeing stuff there anyway.

Surely didn’t mean it as a dig… I’ve been using Linux for over 30 years, when I say “newbie” it covers quite a lot of ground. And as stated, I do agree they have their uses, but on home desktops? Obviously as in my case, sometimes you are forced to, but when there’s a perfectly good version of the software in distribution repository, it usually solves a lot of problems (people needing to go in and allow flatpaks to see outside of their little sandbox, etc.)

I also don’t understand immutable distributions for home desktops either, but I’ll save the yelling at that particular cloud for another day. No offense meant! Cheers.

14

Depends on what you mean with “solve dependency hell”. It solves it in the sense that two applications A and B can have separate, versioned dependencies and there isn’t a single common dependency that gets updated when B is updated and breaks A. What it doesn’t solve is that applications still need some maintenance and at some point have to switch off an old unmaintained dependency to a newer one.

Some view the Flatpak sandbox as an advantage. :wink:

For a while, I was also critical of graphical package managers and how they seemed to prefer Flatpaks. But especially with all the threads in here about installed RPMs that prevented the update from F42 to F43, I can see how Flatpaks might be preferable for inexperienced users, who don’t know how to deal with an RPM conflict during an update.

Same thing, especially for someone using their computer mostly for web surfing and occasionally an office document, I definitely see the appeal of Atomic systems: there is a single image that is switched A/B style (like on a mobile phone and with no chance of RPM conflicts because of the image nature). And if things go wrong, you can simply roll back to an earlier image. No need for BTRFS snapshots or similar, also a question that often comes up. (I don’t want to sound too contrarian here, I have my own clouds I like to yell at.)

None taken, I have used Linux for almost as long as you. I just get a little defensive when a statement sounds dismissive. After all, we all had to start somewhere.