Linux shows generic Wayland icon (electron app_id)

Help
1

Steps to reproduce

install on linux, pin to taskbar, open

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Yes.

Expected result

Obsidian opens in window called “Obsidian” with the purple icon in the taskbar, not the generic Wayland yellow W with window name “electron”.

Actual result

generic Wayland yellow W with window name “electron”

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: 1.13.4
Installer version: 1.13.4
Operating system: #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:03:35 +0000 7.1.6-1-cachyos
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on
RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

2

How? Which installation method did you use?

3

I have the same bug but @WhiteNoise thinks that there is specific problem with my system or installation method and not with the version 1.13.4 even when I send logs :smiley:

4

The bug is already known on Arch Linux and is currently being addressed:

5

This is a reminder that, as indicated in the BR template, we only take BR when the app is installed with one of the installation methods listed on own website.

We do not make the Arch Package. The Arch package is an unauthorized and unsupported third-party redistribution of the app.

6

This did get fixed upstream (commit: ffcdde2b)

But launching from my taskbar pin or the .desktop directly still made no difference. I had a stale user-level override shadowing the packaged file:

~/.local/share/applications/obsidian.desktop:StartupWMClass=obsidian ← mine, stale
/usr/share/applications/obsidian.desktop:StartupWMClass=md.Obsidian ← upstream

~/.local/share/applications/ outranks /usr/share/applications/ for the same filename, so my copy kept winning. Might’ve edited Obsidian’s entry in KDE’s menu editor at some point: kmenuedit writes out a full private copy, which then silently masks any later packaging fix.

The fix was to quit Obsidian, then:

rm ~/.local/share/applications/obsidian.desktop
kbuildsycoca6 --noincremental # KDE Plasma 6; omit on other desktops

Make sure kmenuedit isn’t open while you do this, or closing it writes the override straight back.

The StartupWMClass value is distro-specific, but the shadowing isn’t. This can happen on any Linux desktop, with any packaging.