flathub / flathub/org.octave.Octave

Fails to initiliase main GUI window (clutter assertion)

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Description

I checked the Octave bug tracker and here and cannot see an existing bug/issue and I believe this to be an flatpak issue.

When I start the GUI version, an icon gets added to the dock (and if I right click that it shows that there is a window, but that window is empty/invisible). In the system log I can see one line which seem relevant:

```
Aug 04 19:14:18 gnome-shell[3470]: clutter_actor_insert_child_at_index: assertion 'child->priv->parent == NULL' failed
```

Not sure when this started to happen (I have not used Octave in a while) but it used to work for me. I strongly suspect that this might be the updated Gnome runtime thing...
If I start Octave flatpack from the terminal (without the `--gui` flag) I get working Octave CLI.

Octave details:

```
flatpak info org.octave.Octave

GNU Octave - Scientific Programming Language

ID: org.octave.Octave
Ref: app/org.octave.Octave/x86_64/stable
Arch: x86_64
Branch: stable
Version: 11.3.0
License: GPL-3.0+
Origin: flathub
Collection: org.flathub.Stable
Installation: system
Installed: 550.7 MB
Runtime: org.kde.Sdk/x86_64/6.10
Sdk: org.kde.Sdk/x86_64/6.10

Commit: a37e6c8b9898ad580b4666407cb324fe8cd6e18dd1860fa811028b34575c577f
Parent: 475a1d58a15fb70519407398d01984eb1a14a50842e3abe7646cc78a4d96191f
Subject: Refactor the manifest to make it modular (#478) (08a74eb845ea)
Date: 2026-06-09 00:14:46 +0000
```

Runtime details:
```
flatpak info org.gnome.Platform

GNOME Application Platform version 50 - Shared libraries used by GNOME
applications

ID: org.gnome.Platform
Ref: runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/50
Arch: x86_64
Branch: 50
License: GPL-2.0+
Origin: flathub
Collection: org.flathub.Stable
Installation: system
Installed: 1.1 GB

Commit: de3b0b88d9e931daa384fe5444690c68496fa770ddc30e9e14df7bdecc9a4fdc
Parent: f780e089a0b3bfbde2b3d75e5f23d084583c4ca67d4f6c72f70603c06d486ac2
Subject: Build of the GNOME Runtime from: 50.3-12-g3c3f235ee
Date: 2026-08-02 16:58:04 +0000

```

My system:

```
lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS
Release: 24.04
Codename: noble

uname -a
Linux REDACTED 6.8.0-136-generic #136-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jul 1 21:53:05 UTC 2026 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
```

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start by reproducing the GUI launch with the reported Flatpak build and compare it with launching Octave without --gui. Inspect the Flatpak manifest and GNOME runtime details for the source of the Clutter assertion; the issue is done when the GUI window renders normally without that assertion.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
linux
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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