Delayed autostart applications

Help
1

I’m looking for a way to delay the start of some autostart applications to avoid an issue where something starts before there is a network interface available for it.

Reading around suggests hacking a script together with a sleep in it. Easy to do, but seems like a complete hack and maintenance nightmare. Fugly gnome has the X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay .desktop parameter, but that does involve setting up a local .desktop file. So it’s also a hack I suppose. But then again, KDE does have a decent .desktop file editor… :slight_smile:

2

It sounds to me as if you messed up ‘optimising’ your boot for speed…

Anyway, you just go to Autostart in the menu and from there use bash to execute sleep…
-c "sleep 20 && /usr/bin/application" in the ‘arguments’.

Alternatively, you can write a bash 'startup-qbittorrent` and add the script to your autostart list.

Or go with a smart bash:

#!/bin/bash
# Wait up to 30 seconds for NetworkManager to have a connection
nm-online -t 30 --quiet
# After the connection is established, launch your application
/path/to/your/application &

Or, most robust, use systemd:

[Unit]
Description=My App After Network
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/path/to/your/application
Restart=no

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

However, you should already have services running:

Screenshot_20260331_110834
Screenshot_20260331_110834922×590 70.8 KB

NetworkManager-wait-online.service

[Unit]
Description=Network Manager Wait Online
Documentation=man:NetworkManager-wait-online.service(8)
Requires=NetworkManager.service
After=NetworkManager.service
Before=network-online.target

[Service]
# `nm-online -s` waits until the point when NetworkManager logs
# "startup complete". That is when startup actions are settled and
# devices and profiles reached a conclusive activated or deactivated
# state. It depends on which profiles are configured to autoconnect and
# also depends on profile settings like ipv4.may-fail/ipv6.may-fail,
# which affect when a profile is considered fully activated.
# Check NetworkManager logs to find out why wait-online takes a certain
# time.

Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/nm-online -s -q
RemainAfterExit=yes

# Set $NM_ONLINE_TIMEOUT variable for timeout in seconds.
# Edit with `systemctl edit NetworkManager-wait-online`.
#
# Note, this timeout should commonly not be reached. If your boot
# gets delayed too long, then the solution is usually not to decrease
# the timeout, but to fix your setup so that the connected state
# gets reached earlier.
Environment=NM_ONLINE_TIMEOUT=60

[Install]
WantedBy=network-online.target

And then online.target:

#  SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
#
#  This file is part of systemd.
#
#  systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
#  under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.

[Unit]
Description=Network is Online
Documentation=man:systemd.special(7)
Documentation=https://systemd.io/NETWORK_ONLINE
After=network.target

These would be the reason that nothing I set to autostart has an issue with networking - and that includes boot time startup of Seerr and other network dependent stuff…

They come as part of the package when you install KDE Plasma - they are ‘sane defaults’ which some folks ‘tune up’ to get slighly faster boot times…

Additionally, services get messed up when people get into experimenting with installing different desktops rather than doing a clean install each time - and got services mixed up or duplicated along the way…