Bottles has stopped working

[Tellic]

I've been using Bottles without issue for months now in Desktop mode on my Steam Deck.

Until, just recently, it will not start at all, or report any error message - not sure how to debug the issue or if there is a crash report I might be able to see somewhere else in the system.

I click Launch from Discover - and the mouse icon briefly flashes to indicate it's trying to run Bottles - but then nothing happens.

Me sad.

Ironically, the latest reviews for Bottles, in Discover, say it works fine with Steam Deck OLED.

Did they break normal Steam Deck support by supporting the OLED Steam Deck?

[Tellic]

Friendly, non-aggressive, bump!

Has Bottles stopped working for anyone else recently? Or just something borked on my system?

[Hiro]

I use bottles on a daily basis and have not noticed any changes.
It is not on Steam Deck though.

Try to open Konsole and run bottles with this command:

flatpak run com.usebottles.bottles

See if any information about the error is shown.

If this does not give anything useful you can try with this:

flatpak run -vvv com.usebottles.bottles

This will generate A LOT of output but, may help to check what is going on.

[Tellic]

@Hiro Thanks,

the first flatpak command generated the following output:

flatpak run com.usebottles.bottles 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/bin/bottles", line 44, in <module>
    from bottles.frontend import main
  File "/app/share/bottles/bottles/frontend/main.py", line 36, in <module>
    from bottles.frontend.windows.main_window import MainWindow
  File "/app/share/bottles/bottles/frontend/windows/main_window.py", line 30, in <module>
    from bottles.backend.managers.manager import Manager
  File "/app/share/bottles/bottles/backend/managers/manager.py", line 39, in <module>
    from bottles.backend.managers.component import ComponentManager
  File "/app/share/bottles/bottles/backend/managers/component.py", line 25, in <module>
    import pycurl
ImportError: pycurl: libcurl link-time version (8.2.1-DEV) is older than compile-time version (8.4.0-DEV)

There is a Github bug for this Steam Deck Issue so I'll post this information there and see if there is some way to update my pycurl / libcurl library in the mean time.

Thanks.

[deaddoof]

https://github.com/bottlesdevs/Bottles/issues/3218#issuecomment-1872538079

They suggested you downgrade bottles to 51.9

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/tips-and-tricks.html#

[Tellic]

Thanks @deaddoof,

Sadly hit another impasse - at least for my level of skills.

I figured out from the tips and tricks that the commit for v51.9 is:

ca5bc99c5bb49811254fdcad618b80a7e588993d88b0d93e4ab237153afc8d40

But when running the update command (to downgrade):

sudo flatpak update --commit=ca5bc99c5bb49811254fdcad618b80a7e588993d88b0d93e4ab237153afc8d40 com.usebottles.bottles

I just get a blank error that

Looking for updates…
error: com.usebottles.bottles not installed

It definitely is installed at this stage. I installed from the command line, and get the same libcurl error when trying to run, and Discover even sees it is installed again.
Not sure if it is connected to installing at User level, rather than System level

Seems weird to me that you can't just install bottles at a given version - can you not do that?

Instead of installing the latest and having to 'downgrade' to a previous commit.

I'm not sure my skills are up to compiling a local version from that commit.

[deaddoof]

Can you post your installed bottles? I wonder what is different about your system

 flatpak list

 flatpak update --commit=ca5bc99c5bb49811254fdcad618b80a7e588993d88b0d93e4ab237153afc8d40 com.usebottles.bottles

this command worked for me

[Tellic]

Originally posted by Tellic:

.....
Not sure if it is connected to installing at User level, rather than System level
.....

This seems to be the issue - I re-installed from the command line and specified a System installation, then the update worked, and Bottles is running.

Thanks for the help.

[Tellic]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Can you post your installed bottles? I wonder what is different about your system

 flatpak list

 flatpak update --commit=ca5bc99c5bb49811254fdcad618b80a7e588993d88b0d93e4ab237153afc8d40 com.usebottles.bottles

this command worked for me

I notice you didn't use 'sudo'. I wonder if it works for 'User' level installs without 'sudo', but checks system level installs with 'sudo'. /shrug

Otherwise, I've no idea.

Anyway, Bottles is working again for now.

Thanks again.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Tellic:

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Can you post your installed bottles? I wonder what is different about your system

 flatpak list

 flatpak update --commit=ca5bc99c5bb49811254fdcad618b80a7e588993d88b0d93e4ab237153afc8d40 com.usebottles.bottles

this command worked for me

I notice you didn't use 'sudo'. I wonder if it works for 'User' level installs without 'sudo', but checks system level installs with 'sudo'. /shrug

Otherwise, I've no idea.

Anyway, Bottles is working again for now.

Thanks again.

Steam OS has an immutable filesystem. You not be installing flatpak stuff with sudo or else it will disappear in the next system update.

[deaddoof]

OP. Do not worry too much about your skill level. Valve made a pretty awkward distro and the community as a whole re adjusting. These small things are easy to missed. I wrote the correct answer on accident.