How to open a file in the /tmp folder in inkscape?

Question

Some software I use uses inkscape to convert images from one format to another, as an intermediate step. This means that they write images to the /tmp folder, and attempt to use inkscape on those images to obtain the image format they need. However, on my system, inkscape doesn't like the /tmp folder.

When trying to open/edit an svg file in the /tmp directory using inkscape, e.g., inkscape /tmp/test.svg it throws the error/warning

** (inkscape:6528): WARNING **: Can't open file: test.svg (doesn't exist)

The file exists, and I can open it with Budgie's default viewer.

When doing something similar in the home folder, e.g., inkscape ~/test.svg the test file opens just fine. Inkscape itself runs when calling inkscape somewhere in the /tmp folder, it just can't use files from the folder.

I am running Solus 4, and installed inkscape using sudo snap install inkscape.

Answer 1

Snaps are confined and have limited access to your host system; they don’t have access to /tmp. You’re only supposed to open files in your home directory with Inkscape installed as a snap.

You could try re-installing the snap in classic mode, but I wouldn’t recommend that generally:

sudo snap install --classic inkscape

That flag is ignored anyway for strictly-confined snaps, which is the case with your Inkscape snap (as you discovered).

I recommend not trying to get around confinement for two reasons. The first is that it exposes your system more than necessary (which you could consider not a problem if you trust the snap). The second is that snaps are designed with confinement in mind, so even if you trust the snap, it might behave unexpectedly if it’s unconfined.