Could you remove those broken apps and try the 'SideloadApp' method in DBus which will use the same code as RockWork uses for installation. Download the pbw and do: qdbus org.rockwork /org/rockwork/B0_B4_48_80_B9_87 org.rockwork.Pebble.SideloadApp /full/path/to/file.pbw And see if the daemon does anything extra that might make it work.