"Open with..." changes default application at random

Shino · 2018-09-27 09:37:49

Hi,

I have a small problem. I'm not sure if it's related to gnome or anything else. I'm using nautilus as file browser. My typical PDF viewer is evince. Yesterday, however, I opened a PDF file with inkscape. For that, I manually clicked on "open with..." and selected inkscape. Today I noticed that this changed my default application for PDF files to inkscape.

This is just a random example. This happened to me with other file types and programs, too.

The expected behavior is, that the default application for this file type does not change. This works for most of the cases but sometimes it changes. I couldn't figure out the exact reasons for when it changes the default application and when not.

I hope someone has a solution for this.

Thank you

mmarzantowicz · 2018-09-28 10:42:44

I'm not sure this isn't kind of "it's a feature not a bug" issue. It's very annoying but to my knowledge there is no fix for this behavior (other than replacing nautilus with some different file manager).

V1del · 2018-09-28 10:44:22

Been a while since I've used nautilus but from what I remember there used to be a checkbox in the "open with" dialog that you could check or uncheck to define whether the choice should be saved as the default. Is that not the case anymore?

mmarzantowicz · 2018-09-28 11:10:22

This option has been removed some time ago. This might also be the time this annoyance begun.

V1del · 2018-09-28 11:36:37

Relevant code seems to still be there though: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus … -chooser.c In doubt explicitly go to file properties.

FWIW Although I don't think that clicking simply on an open with entry should change that. Have you ever explicitly set a default app? If you've never explicitly set a default app and thus by all intents and purposes "there's no default set" the randomness of the behaviour is somewhat explainable (though I'd rather assume changes in this regard would happen on package upgrades when relevant rebuilding scripts are triggered). If you explicitly set the default app over the file properties dialog, it shouldn't change anymore.

mmarzantowicz · 2018-09-28 12:46:38

I'm not sure that mime application chooser is used when you right click on a file and choose "Open with...". It looks smarter (in source code) than what is actually presented to the user, which is a window/frame with list of recommended apps and four buttons including search and show more.

"Open with..." changes default app also for files with defaults set. Maybe context menu calls invalid cb ("open and set forever" instead of "open with this app and forget it" ).

V1del · 2018-09-28 13:30:11

Yes from what I'm gathering that dialog should be present on right click -> "File Properties". What I'm wondering if the change doesn't happen if you set a default there explicitly. If it still does then well... GNOME ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

FWIW if GNOME/Nautilus itself doesn't allow to set this properly anymore (i find this quite unlikely to be honest), it should still be possible with https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De … plications and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XD … plications and GNOME/nautilus should be honoring explicit definitions made there.

Last edited by V1del (2018-09-28 17:52:17)

ugjka · 2018-09-28 17:05:09

/usr/share/libalpm/hooks/update-mime-database.hook

Arch Linux

#1 2018-09-27 09:37:49

"Open with..." changes default application at random

#2 2018-09-28 10:42:44

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

#3 2018-09-28 10:44:22

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

#4 2018-09-28 11:10:22

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

#5 2018-09-28 11:36:37

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

#6 2018-09-28 12:46:38

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

#7 2018-09-28 13:30:11

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

#8 2018-09-28 17:05:09

Re: "Open with..." changes default application at random

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