Bug: Epiphany webapp creation produces blank .desktop files on Epiphany 49+

[PtrikM]

Environment

• OS: CachyOS 6.19.10-1 (Arch-based)
• webapp-manager: 1.4.6-1 (from AUR)
• Epiphany (GNOME Web): 49.6 (both AUR and Flatpak)
• Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma

Description

When creating a webapp using Epiphany as the backend, the resulting .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/ is completely empty (0 bytes). The webapp cannot be launched as a result.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open webapp-manager
2. Create a new webapp with Epiphany selected as the browser
3. Check ~/.local/share/applications/WebApp-[name].desktop — file is empty

Terminal Output

Running webapp-manager from the terminal and creating the webapp produces the following warnings:

(epiphany:575946): epiphany-WARNING **: Profile directory /home/ptrk/.local/share/org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp-truenastest7468 does not begin with required web app prefix org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp_

[ ephy-profile-migrator.c ] migrate_profile_directories: moving '/home/ptrk/.local/share/org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp-truenastest7468' to '/home/ptrk/.local/share/org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp_truenastest7468'

(ephy-profile-migrator.c): Cannot remove old desktop file symlink '/home/ptrk/.local/share/applications/org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp-truenastest7468.desktop'

--profile must be an existing directory when --application-mode is requested

Root Cause

Epiphany 49 requires profile directories to be named using an underscore separator (org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp_name), but webapp-manager creates them using a hyphen (org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp-name). Epiphany's profile migrator attempts to rename the directory from hyphen to underscore format, but fails to clean up the old symlink, leaving the profile in a broken state. Because the profile directory is never successfully created, the webapp launch fails and the .desktop file is left empty.

Expected Behavior

Webapp-manager should create Epiphany profile directories using an underscore separator (org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp_name) to match the naming convention required by current versions of Epiphany.

Workaround
Using a Firefox-based backend in webapp-manager is unaffected by this issue and works as expected, so using that as a backend is general workaround option to Epiphany. I haven't tested in Chromium-based browsers yet.

Adding this as an addendum, but when I went to create a webapp in Epiphany, I found the webapp-manager generated ones there. Strangely, I was able to launch them with epiphany's 'Launch' button under the "Manage Web Apps" section.

Note: Epiphany's own 'Install as Web App' feature appears non-functional on this system regardless of installation method (AUR and Flatpak both tested), so using Epiphany's built-in creation as a workaround is not currently viable, unless you create all apps in webapp-manager, then only launch via Epiphany.