Flatpak can't download to specified locations or stream with 'Play Now'

[S7venLights]

Hi two questions/issues with the flatpak (I also posted here https://github.com/BiglySoftware/BiglyBT/issues/28#issuecomment-1294044519)

1. How do I allow BiglyBT to download in different locations without giving the flatpak full access to the home directory using Flatseal.
2. How do I get the 'Play Now' streaming feature to work? Gives an Error (VLC does not appear to be installed correctly) I tried to install VLC as a flatpak and as a package in a Fedora Silverblue Toolbox.

I'm On Fedora Silverblue

[ghazyami]

Sorry for late reply: For

1. How do I allow BiglyBT to download in different locations without giving the flatpak full access to the home directory using Flatseal. If you have When opening a torrent, show options dialog set to every time you can select a different location and this will use the Flatpak portal feature to allow access to that directory temporary, but this might be revoked later so BiglyBT will not be able to access to file to seed it.

Or you can manually add a specific directory using Flatseal

2. I can confirm the same behaviour and will check how to resolve it.

[S7venLights]

If possible it would be nice to be able to choose an app to Play Now with. Thanks 🙏

[ghazyami]

@S7venLights if your intent is to use the Embedded Media Player then only VLC is supported (and used internally so you don't get the usual VLC window), But if your intent is just to play the file using an external player of your choice then you can right click on a torrent entry > select content > open file or change the double click action to launch content

[S7venLights]

My intent is to stream from the torrent, the 'launch content' setting is nice to know about but doesn't ensure the torrent download the files pieces in order. Is there another way to invoke Bigly to download files pieces in such a way as to allow streaming?

As for allowing specific directories via Flatseal, I can't make sense of it can you point me to a guide or explain. What is xdg or -/ Why doesn't copy pasting a full directory path work?

[ghazyami]

I think the sequential download is what you are looking for, it can be enabled manually via right-clicking on a torrent or automatically based on file extensions in the options

As for specific directories, absolute paths should work fine, xdg directory names are just a generic way to refere to directories based on the freedesktop specifications

[S7venLights]

Ahh fantastic I reckon that's a decent work around for now. Thanks 🙌

Copy pasting full file directories/paths aren't accepted. That freedesktop site isn't exactly beginner friendly… I Guess I'll keep searching for answers or ask a friend.

[S7venLights]

I just tested this and alas sequential download doesn't seem to allow playback streaming, I assume there are parts of the file (maybe the codec container) that need to be downloaded first to allow playback and sequential download doesn't do this. I did find an option when right clicking on an active torrent download: ' content/media server ' . That gives you uri's but not sure how to use that or if it would even help. Anyway fixing the play now in flatpak would be best. There is an app webtorrent which successfully streams torrents from a flatpak if you want to get direction from it.

[S7venLights]

This may be relevant: https://github.com/flathub/io.webtorrent.WebTorrent/issues/3

[ghazyami]

@S7venLights thanks for your input.

• I don't think I can make VLC work unless there is change on the code side, and I am not a maintainer, I just packaged as flatpak. (WebTorrent already let you select the external player, but BiglyBT will use VLC as an embedded player and this is hardcoded)

• Regarding streaming, I am able to play a file with just 10% downloaded. (via opening the file directly on the filesystem or right click > content > open file) so maybe when you tried it the first pieces were not downloaded maybe, so the headers were missing?

[S7venLights]

@ghazyami Okay, can we continue the playback issue with BiglyBT then? I commented here.

Regarding playback at 10%, was that with sequential download or not? I've had videos be unable to play even at 50% or more. But without sequential off, sometimes the video will playback, but then has pieces missing along the way. And my guess is it's random luck when it does play as it got the headers.

As for "Flatpak can't download to specified locations" I figured this out, added these filesystem access to Flatseal: ~/.biglybt where ~/ means home directory and ~/InputYourPath/Movies

[S7venLights]

I tested without access to ~/.biglybt added in flatseal filsystem. And the app would launch without all my torrents listed. Even though it's a persistent permission. As soon as I manually allowed it, bigly works fine. It may be due to filesystem differences in Fedora Silverblue, I dunno?

[S7venLights]

Recently I've still had issues with my library not loading after it worked on previous launches. There must be some temp directory it needs access to that it only uses from time to time… I ended up giving Bigly access to all User / home files in flatseal, then manually blocking access to every folder I don't want it to access individually.

[ghazyami]

I will try to check if additional directories needed