[Linux on Chromebook] Anki 25.07.5 crashes with Wayland error immediately after starting

You should be able to run /usr/local/share/anki/uninstall.sh, provided your chromebook linux OS works like other linux OSes (e.g. like debian).

Anki disables wayland support by default. Here’s what I see on debian trixie when I run anki:

Starting Anki 25.07.5...
Wayland support is disabled by default due to bugs:
https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/1767
You can force it on with an env var: ANKI_WAYLAND=1
2025-08-30 19:25:23,356:INFO:aqt.mediasrv: Serving on http://127.0.0.1:35697
Starting main loop...
mpv not found, reverting to mplayer

The correct way to force wayland would thus be this command:

ANKI_WAYLAND=1 anki

Chromebook is using Wayland, though, according to Linux in Chrome OS using Wayland. [Reddit.com].

What is your session using? E.g. my debian trixie returns wayland if I run echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE.

It might be best if you use the flatpak version, which will make sure all neccessary dependencies are installed (ChromeOS apparently lacks some dependencies). Using flatpak helped other users for similar issues (on other, non anki related, apps).

1 Like