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Description of problem:
Since we are not shipping any remote with RHEL by default so far, every RHEL9 installation has empty /var/lib/flatpak.

This causes 2 kinds of issues:

1. Every start of gnome-software greets users with error message:
Sorry, Something went wrong:
error: Creating repo: mkdirat: Permission denied

2. The same error is preventing users to make operation with added --user remotes:
$ flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
$ flatpak remote-info flathub 
error: Creating repo: mkdirat: Permission denied
$ flatpak remote-ls flathub 
error: Creating repo: mkdirat: Permission denied
$ flatpak remote-delete flathub
error: Creating repo: mkdirat: Permission denied
   
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
flatpak-1.10.2-4.el9.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Additional info:
I reproduced this with Fedora 35 (https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/4111#issuecomment-878226675) as well. 

As mentioned in upstream issue running "# flatpak repair" populates /var/lib/flatpak and solves the situation.

*** Bug 2003810 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 2057584 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

It looks like this is only triggered when the 'repo' subfolder is missing.
Two short term workarounds available:
- Do not create /var/lib/flatpak by default
- Create /var/lib/flatpak/repo by default

This is https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/4111, fixed by https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/pull/4732 (from https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/releases/tag/1.13.1).

Merge request: https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/flatpak/-/merge_requests/13

Built flatpak-1.12.5-2.el9_0:
https://brewweb.engineering.redhat.com/brew/taskinfo?taskID=43719286

flatpak-1.12.5-2.el9_0.x86_64

1. I tried both reproducers in the bug Description and the error message is no longer there.

2. Removing contents of /var/lib/flatpak/ does not cause the error message to occur.

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory (new packages: flatpak), and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2022:2334