Xdg-open, magnets and KDE

I had a problem to open magnet files from chromium. The torrent client didn't seem to launch.
$ xdg-mime query default "x-scheme-handler/magnet"
transmission-qt.desktop
mime type seemed to be linked to the correct application.
Trying to launch xdg-open from terminal :
$ xdg-open "magnet:?somemagnet"
QWidget: Cannot create a QWidget when no GUI is being used
/usr/bin/xdg-open: line 513: 1568 Aborted (core dumped) kde-open --noninteractive "$1"
I don't know why this doesn't work, or why I can't find any reference of other people with the same problem.
I resolved the problem by patching xdg-open. I removed the --noninteractive flag from kde-open command, and all seems to work fine now. Still it troubles me why the xdg-open script doesn't work out of the box. Any ideas?

Related bug reports in xdg-utils and KDE:
Bug 269823 - kde-open --noninteractive foo.noassoc crashes
Bug 16295 - xdg-open is inconsistent across desktop environments (also see http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-uti … bf7ce76cb3)
EDIT: I've opened a bug report at KDE: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=336117
EDIT: And there's already a bug report in Arch: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/40795
Last edited by joschi (2014-06-12 12:24:56)

Similar Messages

Xdg-open and i3wm

Has anyone had any luck with trying to get xdg-open to work with magnet links in Chromium? My hopeful end result would be to have magnet links open in rtorrent (command line utility), but my current workaround is to use a Chrome plugin that turns magnet links into .torrent files.
I'm also having issues with other URL scheme handlers such as irc:// and opening PDFs from within Chromium.
I am running 3.6.11-1 ARCH #1, 64-bit machine, on a laptop.
Thank you!

anonymous_user wrote:However since it is a terminal application, I don't know how well it would work (if at all).
It should. I beleive there is even an option in desktop files to open in a terminal, but I've never relied on that. I just build it into the exec line. For example, to open a file in vim in urxvt I'd just have
Exec=urxvt -c vim %s
or something like that.

Whippet (formerly Ease): application launcher and xdg-open replacement

Whippet is a Bash script which opens files and urls with applications associated by name and/or MIME-type. Applications and associations may be customized within an SQLite database, and can be weighted according to the importance you assign to them. Whippet can serve as an xdg-open replacement for those who wish to have total control over which applications are associated with which types of files. For more experienced users only, but ideal for integrating with light desktop environments and file managers. Whippet uses dmenu to manage its menus, and you will also need a program such as DB Browser for SQLite for managing the SQLite database. Once installed from the AUR package, execute the command 'man whippet' for more information.
Edit on 2015-06-23: Updated for Whippet 2.1.2.
Edit on 2015-03-15: Rebranded as Whippet; was formerly Ease.
Last edited by ninian (Today 14:24:22)

Version 1.2.0 has been released, with the following new features:
Can now optionally associate applications by matching regexes to file/URI names in the configuration file.
New option -n and configuration variable $assocname control the usage of associations by file/URI name.
Also:
Fixed a bug causing a loop in the fallback menu when an alternative configuration directory is specified.

Xdg-open is indecisive and causes applications to not respond!

For some reason, xdg-open will not respond usually when only called once on a file. Repeating the command rapidly however will work eventually (!?)
$ touch foo.txt
$ xdg-open foo.txt
$ xdg-open foo.txt
$ xdg-open foo.txt # after rapid [up-key]+[enter]s, this will work, for example
$ xdg-mime query filetype foo.txt
text/plain
$ xdg-mime query default text/plain
org.gnome.gedit.desktop
It looks like everything should work fine, from the examples given above, but the problem is there. As a result, I have to repeat the command rapidly in the command line to work, and in Chromium I have to keep on clicking "open in folder" to get Nautilus to launch
I remember when the problem started - it was when I installed libreoffice, and for whatever not-so-smart reason, it sets itself as the default app for text/plain, and application/javascript, in my limited usage. So I used:
$ xdg-mime default gedit.desktop text/plain
$ xdg-mime default gedit.desktop application/javascript
... to try and solve the issue, however I faced the same symptoms I am facing now, and even after removing .local/applications/*, I'm still experiencing the same problems
I'm in desperate need of some help, and would appreciate anyone who has insight on this

I've had this bug ever since GNOME 3.14 came in to Arch but have never found anybody else reporting it so I thought it was something specific to my configuration. Glad to see some others have it!
If you run xdg-open once then it does start nautilus but nautilus does not open the window, e.g. "xdg-open .". Nautilus will stay running for about 1 min and it you run xdg-open again within that time it will work and open the window. As soon as Nautilus stops (or after you stop it with nautlius -q), then the next invocation of xdg-open will not work.
PS later edit: I should point out that, consistent with my description of the problem above, if you use Nautilus to manage your desktop (i.e. set "Icons on Desktop" in GNOME Tweak Tool) then you won't see this bug because Nautilus is always running.
Last edited by bulletmark (2014-12-22 05:34:16)

Xdg-open and apvlv

I recently switched to apvlv as my default pdf viewer. When I try to set it as my default pdf program in xdg-open (for chromium), with the command:
xdg-mime default apvlv.desktop application/pdf
xdg-open does it's favorite default behavior, which is to try to open the file in firefox. Any idea how I can fix this?

Have you tried to create a ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list which contains the following?
[Default Applications]
application/pdf=apvlv.desktop
This works without any problems on my system. If still no luck, try to install perl-file-mimeinfo.
Regards

Xdg-open Fix

This is for any frustrated by Google Chrome using random applications to open its downloads.
Google Chrome uses xdg-open to open its downloads. Since I don't use Gnome or KDE, the DE environment variable is unset. If the DE environment variable is unset or set to "generic", xdg-open uses the open_generic_xdg_mime() function to choose the application to open files. This function incorrectly determines the location of the .desktop file. It will come up with something like
/usr/share/applications//usr/share/applications/mplayer.desktop
instead of
/usr/share/applications/mplayer.desktop.
To fix this I added
default=`echo $default | sed "s|[^\w]*/||"`
below the line (line number 384)
default=`xdg-mime query default "$filetype"`.
Setting the default application with xdg-mime default [.desktop file] [mime-type] populates the $HOME/.local/share/applications/defaults.list file. With the fix, xdg-open now correctly uses this file and open applications as expected.

By the way OP. If you are using pcmanfm: here is handy replacement for /usr/bin/xdg-open - http://dumpz.org/15027/
It handles http(s), mail and magnet links, and on all other lets pcmanfm deside

Fixing xdg-open

Hi all fellow archers!
For quite some time, those of us running without a desktop environment have been struggling to cope with xdg-open for handling file opens (especially for Chromium).
Although xdg-open has gotten a bit better over time (it now falls back to mimeopen if it doesn't know what to do).
Unfortunately, this solution is not a "proper" one since mimeopen currently does not work with URIs, only with files.
To get around this, I have made two minor adjustments to my system to make it handle even URIs gracefully.
The first is a hack, the second a (small) patch to xdg-open:
The hack:
ln -s /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache to /usr/share/applications/defaults.list
this will make all applications that register MIME types using MimeType= in their .desktop files the default for their respective MIMEs.
This is required since xdg-mime does not check mimeinfo.cache when looking up applications for mime types, only defaults.list files.
If multiple applications happen to register for the same MIME type, I'm not sure which is chosen as the default, but this should be overridden in ~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list anyway.
The second part, the patch, can be viewed here: http://pastebin.com/EduF8GjC
For those not used to merging patches like this, download the raw .patch file from here: http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=EduF8GjC , and then run
sudo patch /usr/bin/xdg-open <xdg-open_uri_patch.txt
Note that you shouldn't normally just do what strangers like me tell you to, so have a look through the .patch file before patching /usr/bin/xdg-open to make sure I haven't done something naughty.
There are also unreleased patches for this upstream here and here if you'd prefer using those, but they may not patch nicely against the current Arch version.
Essentially, whenever a URI is being opened with the internal, generic opener, xdg-mime is queried for the default application for "x-scheme-handler/$scheme" where $scheme is the scheme part of the URI.
That application is then started with the full URI the path to open.
Now sit back and enjoy Chromium opening all your files correctly, even magnet:, mailto: and spotify: links (if you've got a client for each installed of course).
Jon
PS: The patch has also been submitted to the Portland/XdgUtils team as bug #44873
EDIT: Turns out this has already been patched after a similar bugreport, just not released, in these commits. The patch is still needed until a release with these changes comes though. Feel free to use the upstream patches instead if you want.
Last edited by Jonhoo (2012-01-17 22:49:21)

I tried to find out what was going on using strace. Here is the output:
strace -f /usr/bin/gvfs-open file.pdf 2>&1 | grep exec
execve("/usr/lib/xfce4/exo-1/exo-helper-1",
Why is gvfs-open resorting to xfce's opener while I am running gnome???
A bit earlier in the trace, gvfs loads /usr/lib/gio/modules/libexo-module-1.so which is certainly the culprit.
My question is then: how do I make gvfs-open use gnome's facilites?
--- edit ---
Looks like my problem:
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=62203
--- edit 2 ---
Some more info:
http://penguincopter.blogspot.com/2010/ … ty-of.html
Last edited by benob (2011-02-21 18:38:56)

Xdg-open / xdg-utils: a security hazard?

I just noticed these programs after doing an update on my laptop. In particular, web browsers started suggesting I open things with "xdg-open" -- I'm suspicious of anything that "auto-decides" what program to run in order to open something. This is one of the main reasons I got away from Windows -- I open things by either:
- Starting the program first, then using whatever load/open command it has or dragging a file onto it.
or
- Explicitly opening a file with a specific program, either by "programname filename" from the terminal, or by right-click menu in a graphical file manager.
I've gone to great lengths to cripple most of the desktop MIME functionality that comes with KDE apps, because of its insistence on associating .exe files with WINE (look -- now you can accidentally run something by double-clicking it!).
How long before we start seeing malware that works because of xdg-open, xdg-email, an so on? Hopefully no one ever helpfully adds extensions like ".sh" to xdg-open... ("oh, it looks like you just downloaded / someone just e-mailed you a shell script. Would you like me to open it for you? Look, I'll save you the trouble of chmod +x ing it...")
Am I just being overly paranoid?
~Felix.

ngoonee wrote:
thetrivialstuff wrote:Am I just being overly paranoid?
Yes you are, modifying xdg-open behaviour would require access to your machine (network or physical) which means you're screwed anyway. The more serious problem is *.desktop files, I saw a blog on that a while back.
I think the .desktop files is the problem I'm after -- I'm not assuming that a machine will be compromised by an attacker modifying xdg's behaviour; I'm assuming that some well-intentioned package maintainer will have opened up a security hole by associating some file type that shouldn't have an association (e.g. .exe's opening with WINE makes it possible to run arbitrary code if you can get the user to double-click it, or just accidentally bump "open" instead of "save" in Firefox).
Likewise, poor defaults in web browser packages' "out of the box" configuration could set filetypes to have a default of "open" instead of "save", and then you have to pray that whoever packaged the mime defaults for that file type picked a sane default association. (For example, I've seen browser packages configured to auto-view PDF files if there's a suitable viewer on the system. Not a good idea if the PDF viewer in question supports JavaScript in PDF's.)
~Felix.

A weird xdg-open issue

.local/share/applications/defaults.list
[MIME Cache]
application/arj=xarchiver.desktop;
application/ogg=vlc.desktop;
application/pdf=epdfview.desktop;evince.desktop;
application/postscript=evince.desktop;
application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml=firefox.desktop;
application/vnd.rn-realmedia=vlc.desktop;
application/x-7z-compressed=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-arj=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-bittorrent=deluge.desktop;
application/x-bzdvi=evince.desktop;
application/x-bzip=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-bzip-compressed-tar=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-bzip2=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-bzip2-compressed-tar=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-bzpdf=evince.desktop;
application/x-bzpostscript=evince.desktop;
application/x-cb7=evince.desktop;
application/x-cbr=evince.desktop;
application/x-cbt=evince.desktop;
application/x-cbz=evince.desktop;
application/x-compressed-tar=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-designer=designer.desktop;
application/x-dvi=evince.desktop;
application/x-extension-mp4=vlc.desktop;
application/x-flac=vlc.desktop;
application/x-gzdvi=evince.desktop;
application/x-gzip=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-gzpdf=evince.desktop;
application/x-gzpostscript=evince.desktop;
application/x-linguist=linguist.desktop;
application/x-matroska=vlc.desktop;
application/x-ogg=vlc.desktop;
application/x-openbox-theme=obconf.desktop;
application/x-rar=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-rar-compressed=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-shockwave-flash=vlc.desktop;
application/x-tar=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-xzpdf=evince.desktop;
application/x-zip=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-zip-compressed=xarchiver.desktop;
application/xhtml+xml=firefox.desktop;
application/zip=xarchiver.desktop;
application/x-directory=Thunar-folder-handler.desktop; ############# I added this
audio/mp4=vlc.desktop;
audio/mpeg=vlc.desktop;
audio/vnd.rn-realaudio=vlc.desktop;
audio/webm=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-flac=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-m4a=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-mp3=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-mpeg=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-mpegurl=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-ms-asf=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-ms-asx=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-ms-wax=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-pn-aiff=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-pn-au=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-pn-realaudio=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-pn-wav=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-pn-windows-acm=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-real-audio=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-scpls=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-vorbis+ogg=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-wav=vlc.desktop;
image/tiff=evince.desktop;
image/vnd.djvu=evince.desktop;
image/vnd.rn-realpix=vlc.desktop;
image/x-bzeps=evince.desktop;
image/x-eps=evince.desktop;
image/x-gzeps=evince.desktop;
inode/directory=Thunar-folder-handler.desktop;
misc/ultravox=vlc.desktop;
multipart/x-zip=xarchiver.desktop;
text/html=firefox.desktop;
text/mml=firefox.desktop;
text/plain=leafpad.desktop;
text/vnd.trolltech.linguist=linguist.desktop;
text/xml=firefox.desktop;
video/dv=vlc.desktop;
video/mp4=vlc.desktop;
video/mp4v-es=vlc.desktop;
video/mpeg=vlc.desktop;
video/msvideo=vlc.desktop;
video/quicktime=vlc.desktop;
video/vnd.rn-realvideo=vlc.desktop;
video/webm=vlc.desktop;
video/x-anim=vlc.desktop;
video/x-avi=vlc.desktop;
video/x-flc=vlc.desktop;
video/x-fli=vlc.desktop;
video/x-flv=vlc.desktop;
video/x-mpeg=vlc.desktop;
video/x-ms-asf=vlc.desktop;
video/x-ms-wmv=vlc.desktop;
video/x-msvideo=vlc.desktop;
video/x-nsv=vlc.desktop;
video/x-ogm+ogg=vlc.desktop;
x-content/audio-cdda=vlc.desktop;
x-content/audio-player=vlc.desktop;
x-content/video-dvd=vlc.desktop;
x-content/video-svcd=vlc.desktop;
x-content/video-vcd=vlc.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/http=firefox.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/https=firefox.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/magnet=deluge.desktop;
$xdg-open folderA/
was opening folderA/ in firefox, so I added "application/x-directory=Thunar-folder-handler.desktop;" to defaults. Now
$xdg-open folderA/
opens the folderA in thunar,
but the weird thing is, the moment I close thunar, firefox fires up and opens the folderA once again
any ideas?

OK, I have no idea but this problem ceased to exist. I did nothing but, It works fine now

Best XDG Opener?

What is the best XDG Opener? (Like rox, exo-open (XFCE), gnome-open, mimeopen, kioclient)
Right now I'm using "rox", but I don't like how it comes with a file manager. I'd like to be able to have a seperate file manager and xdg opener, so I can pick and choose easily. Also rox can't open urls.

It seems that xdg-open will always use one's browser if one does not have a major DE (that is KDE, Gnome or XFCE). This is denoted generic in xdg-utils.
From the change log it seems that xdg-open would query mimeopen . This functionality is not present in xdg-open at the moment though. I might have something to do with this bug.
I found a nice patch that will make query mimeopen when using xdg-open.
The patch is located here.
Basically one just needs to change the open_generic() function in /usr/bin/xdg-open to:
open_generic()
if mimeopen -v 2>/dev/null 1>&2; then
mimeopen -n "$1"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
exit_success
fi
fi
IFS=":"
for browser in $BROWSER; do
if [ x"$browser" != x"" ]; then
browser_with_arg=`echo "$browser" | sed s#%s#"$1"#`
if [ x"$browser_with_arg" = x"$browser" ]; then "$browser" "$1";
else $browser_with_arg;
fi
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then exit_success;
fi
fi
done
exit_failure_operation_impossible "no method available for opening '$1'"
It works well for me. I don't know why the removed this IMO essential feature. They mention something about protocols in the bug report. . . If somebody knows more please enlighten me.
--Rasmus

Xdg-open preffered applications

Hello, how can I change the preferred applications that xdg-open uses? For example on pdf files it will open them with firefox, I'd rather have them opened in evince.
I'm using openbox standalone and pcmanfm

Then I don't know what's wrong. I suppose, however, that it would be possible to work through the various steps that xdg-open takes to open a file and see where it breaks. For example, if I run "xdg-open Documents/Stuff/Stuff.pdf" then this is what happens:
If the DE is neither gnome, kde nor xfce then xdg-open will set
the variable $DE to "generic" and will also check $BROWSER, setting it to
"firefox:mozilla:epiphany:konqueror:chromium-browser:google-chrome:links2:links:lynx:w3m"
if it isn't set already.
If $DE is "generic" then the function open_generic will be called.
open_generic will check that the file to be opened is a file and if
it is then it will call open_generic_xdg_mime, which will do the following:
$ filetype=`xdg-mime query filetype Documents/Stuff/Stuff.pdf | sed "s/;.*//"`
$ echo $filetype
application/pdf
$ default='xdg-mime query default "$filetype"`
$ echo $default
evince.desktop
$ xdg_user_dir="$XDG_DATA_HOME"
$ xdg_system_dirs="$XDG_DATA_DIRS"
$ x=`echo "$xdg_user_dir:$xdg_system_dirs" | sed 's/:/ /g'`
We need to select the correct path manually at this point, so
$ echo $x
/home/david/.local/share /usr/share /usr/local/share
evince.desktop is in /usr/share/applications, so
$ x="/usr/share/"
$ file="$x/applications/$default"
$ command="`grep -E "^Exec(\[[^]=]*])?=" "$file" | cut -d= -f 2- | first_word`"
bash: first_word: command not found
Oops, first_word is a function
$ command="`grep -E "^Exec(\[[^]=]*])?=" "$file" | cut -d= -f 2-`"
$ echo $command
evince %U
$ command="evince"
$ command_exec=`which $command 2>/dev/null`
$ echo $command_exec
/usr/bin/evince
$ $command_exec Documents/Stuff/Stuff.pdf
** (evince:26937): WARNING **: Failed to create dbus proxy for org.gnome.SettingsDaemon: Could not get owner of name 'org.gnome.SettingsDaemon': no such name
Evince has started at this point and opened Documents/Stuff/Stuff.pdf!

Gnome and KDE 4.1 without mixing?

I'm running Gnome and love it, but wanted to give KDE 4.1 a chance so I installed it too. When logging in (GDM) I choose whether I want to run Gnome or KDE 4.1, but when I boot KDE the kde menus are full Gnome stuff, and when I boot Gnome, the menus are full of KDE stuff. It's a mix I don't like. Either I run Gnome or KDE.
Is there a way to stop the Gnome menus scanning the KDE apps and the KDE menus to stop scanning the Gnome apps?
Besides that, when I'm in Gnome and open a nautilus bookmark from the "Places" menu, Konquerer starts up happily and makes me think, "What a mess. Is this the way it's supposed to work?"
If I want to run Gnome only and KDE only, do I need to make a dual boot with two separate Arch installations?
Last edited by thunderogg (2008-08-01 08:54:02)

The menu "problem" is due to both desktops using the standard menu item location (Freedesktop.org, I believe defines this). If you want completely separate, you don't have to dual boot with two separate Arch installs, just create a new user and make a shared data location that your KDE and Gnome user can access. For example:
/home/thunderogg could be thunderogg, your Gnome user
/home/kthunderogg could be kthunderogg, your KDE user
Create a new /home/shared folder with permissions for both users and save your documents there. That's the only way that I know of to have both installed and not have a menu mess.

Gkrellm and KDE

I have recently been having problems with Gkrellm and KDE. I have gkrellm set to be dockable. However, when I move gkrellm to the right of the screen and it docks there, the KDE panel shrinks in width a little bit, and shifts to the right. Any ideas why this is happening?

When you open up Konsole (or whatever terminal program you are using) it logs you in automatically for the terminal session. So you are logged in to KDE and also Konsole. As a test, open up more Konsoles and see how many users you have.
Last edited by michy99 (2010-03-20 01:47:23)

[SOLVED] xdg-open: no method available for opening

I'm using Openbox. Whenever I try to use xdg-open to open a file or link from the command line, I get the error "xdg-open: no method available for opening". This happens with all files and links, regardless of type. I've tried editing ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list, both manually and with xdg-mime; neither had any effect. I've also tried setting environment variables such as $BROWSER; that had no effect, either.
Strangely, exo-open works with no problem (although the only way I've found to change file associations is by using Thunar). I would just switch to exo-open, except I've encountered a couple of programs that rely on xdg-open for opening web links and the like.
Has anyone else seen this problem? At this point, I'm pretty confused, and I would appreciate any help. Thanks!
Last edited by morganmay (2013-11-19 16:31:08)

Was poking around with this again. I still haven't solved the problem, but I did notice an error that might be a clue. When I enter "xdg-settings get default-url-scheme-handler", I get the error "xdg-settings: unknown desktop environment". I don't have a DE installed, just openbox (although as far as I can tell, XDG doesn't require a DE).
Does anyone know what this means? Searches for this error have only led me to threads recommending solutions that I've already tried without success (editing mimeapps.list, setting environment variables like BROWSER, etc.).

Xdg-open is opening files with no extension in wine notepad

xdg-open is opening files with no extension in wine notepad. This is really annoying. How can I change it?

Click on "Browse" button at the "Open With" dialog and navigate to the location, where acrord32.exe is located. Preferebly, it should be this location "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" unless you have installed at some customized location. I'm assuming you have installed Reader 9. Once you add Adobe Reader in the open with list, it would continue to appear next time onwards.

Xdg-open, magnets and KDE

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