Issues with Signal Desktop

There was another minor update just now 2025-12-11, for which there was no announcement either. I did both 2025-12-08 and 2025-12-11. But the latter just broke signal-desktop when going from 7.81.0-1 to 7.82.0-2. I had to relink my device.


Moderator edit: Removed screenshot of text (which seems to be unrelated)


Mod edit:- “Shouting” (typing in capitals to attract attention) is not welcome in this forum. Please be considerate to others reading. Infringing text removed / moderated. No charge.


You know you are in an unsupported state ignoring packages, and that you are not allowed to post pictures of text?

That has absolutely nothing to do with signal breaking. However, I’m actually on the testing branch I just realized, so my report doesn’t belong in this thread. Deleted it, sorry!

Edit: No I still think it’s on the stable branch. Downgraded to stable, but even there, signal-desktop version is at v7.82, s.a. Branch compare for Manjaro

And this update, even though it somehow doesn’t include signal-desktop in the detailed changes list, upgraded from 7.81 to 7.82 and deleted all my chats. I wonder what’s going on.

@phil294 Since the same version of signal-desktop is available in all branches, I’ve restored your deleted reply and moved everything to a dedicated topic for further troubleshooting.

Notice that I’ve also removed your screenshot of text.

Please see:

I remember reading about Signal Desktop a while back - something with using a portable device to move chats between devices - that reading suggested that Signal Desktop enhanced the security, to avoid a malicious copy and transport of chats for decryption on another device.

As I recall, Signal Desktop will query if it cannot read the message store and give you the opportunity to either stop or wipe the store.

If you choose continue - the only way of getting the messages back, is by re-connecting your mobile device.

Signal-desktop is inherited from Arch and latest version was released 2025-12-11

$ pamac info signal-desktop
Name                  : signal-desktop
Version               : 7.82.0-1
Description           : Signal Private Messenger for Linux
URL                   : https://signal.org

Packager              : Christian Heusel <gromit@archlinux.org>
Build Date            : Thu 11 Dec 2025 12:56:31 GMT

Previous version 7.81.0 was released 2025-12-04
Arch Linux - signal-desktop #9f87d348: upgpkg: 7.81.0-1: New upstream release

Doesn’t it…

Well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.
What evidence do you have to suggest it doesn’t?


Signal-Desktop 7.82.0-1 seems to work as expected on the three Official Manjaro editions – GNOME, Plasma and XFCE – I will not test beyond that with Community editions.

These three successes are sufficient to indicate there is no widespread issue with signal-desktop – the problem must therefore be with your specific environment.


I can only guess which OS you are using – and it’s current state – as you haven’t provided useful detail. System information is usually requested for each Support topic:

inxi -xv8

Please provide it according to forum presentational guidelines. From that point, we might be able to help you further.

In the meantime, please create a new User account (for testing purposes) and log into that – the point is to establish whether or not your issues persist in a fresh environment. Report back with your findings.

Regards.