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#1 2013-04-23 22:45:42

isacdaavid
Member
From: México
Registered: 2011-11-21
Posts: 76
Website

[SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

Hello there. I'm having this problem with gnome-shell 3.8, which is behaving inconsistently towards .desktop files. I have tried finding a pattern on those application launchers located under /usr/share/applications/ that are successfully found when I type their names in the shell, and comparing them to the ones which aren't. I have also modified some launchers without luck. Every installed app is shown at the "All" section, so this has nothing to do with NoDisplay=true. So far these are my clues:

  • Guest account has all programs "searchable", so I suspect I should blame myself instead of Gnome 3.8.

  • Gnome core packages (those in the gnome group) can be searched, the rest of Gnome (gnome-extra) cannot though.

  • The only searchable third-pary apps are videogame emulators, to be specific: desmume, m65py (mupen64) and dolphin.

  • This affects both official and AUR packages.
    EDITED:

  • Permission are consistent across .desktop files too.

Any ideas? Should I create a new user and stop asking for help?

Last edited by isacdaavid (2013-04-25 17:28:40)

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#2 2013-04-24 16:12:57

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

1.Maybe your settings got messed up when you updated. Try creating a new user and see if you can reproduce the issue.
or
2.Delete .config folder in your home folder and It will repopulate the settings from scratch.

Last edited by hadrons123 (2013-04-24 16:13:29)


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#3 2013-04-24 21:38:49

isacdaavid
Member
From: México
Registered: 2011-11-21
Posts: 76
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

Deleting .config/ makes no difference at all, new users work fine however. I think it's time to start backing everything up with cp -a and then transiting to a brand-new user.

Just one more question: If I make the new account with exactly the same username (obviously after deleting current one), will I be able to restore all my stuff like settings and firefox session by simply pasting from backup to new user's home? Or is it that there's something like a unique hash per user no matter if their names are the same, or any other kind of sorcery that won't let me restore with ease?

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#4 2013-04-25 04:15:28

bwat47
Member
Registered: 2009-10-07
Posts: 638

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

Try running: sudo update-desktop-database

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#5 2013-04-25 06:13:38

isacdaavid
Member
From: México
Registered: 2011-11-21
Posts: 76
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

bwat47 wrote:

Try running: sudo update-desktop-database

bash: sudo: command not found

What to do?

I'm kidding, update-desktop-database didn't work. According to update-desktop-database --help and freedesktop.org that command only builds a database of MIME types and their preferred application.

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#6 2013-04-25 06:52:57

isacdaavid
Member
From: México
Registered: 2011-11-21
Posts: 76
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

This experience has taught me many things about Unix-like permissions. It turns out that the user ID (UID) is what is actually considered to be the owner of each file/folder and the user name (USER) displayed by nautilus simply wraps the UID, so even if I create 2 users with the exact same name at different times their UIDs won't match (they seem to be incremented by one each time a new user is created and the count doesn't decrease if an account is deleted, thus assuring unique and unrepeatable users per system). Therefore, "cp -a" is futile for pseudo-moving stuff from one user's home to another unless you can override the UID and Group ID, which would be stupid because  cp -a is used in situations where you don't want them to be overridden unlike sole cp. I must admit ignorance on chmod and chown, so my final option is literally moving my info to a storage media lying outside of the filesystem: slow but workable.

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#7 2013-04-25 11:15:52

bwat47
Member
Registered: 2009-10-07
Posts: 638

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

isacdaavid wrote:
bwat47 wrote:

Try running: sudo update-desktop-database

bash: sudo: command not found

What to do?

I'm kidding, update-desktop-database didn't work. According to update-desktop-database --help and freedesktop.org that command only builds a database of MIME types and their preferred application.

I suggested it because it fixed a similar issue for me. Thunderbird wasn't showing anywhere in the gnome 3.8 overlay and I had it installed, after running that it showed up as expected when searching.

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#8 2013-04-25 17:25:21

isacdaavid
Member
From: México
Registered: 2011-11-21
Posts: 76
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome shell 3.8 excludes some apps (.desktop) when searched

Problem is gone! After comparing my old .local/share against a new user .local/share I noticed some critical differences: I had applications, desktop-directories and mime folders whereas new user did not. My installation is about 4 years old; Gnome 2 stuff leaked and something might have become deprecated, conflicting with Gnome 3.8... dunno.

A file called X-GNOME-Other.directory inside .local/share/desktop-directories was creating the whole trouble. I removed it, restarted gnome-shell, and everything returned to normality.

@hadrons123, @bwat47: thanks for your advice.

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