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lobotomiteqt5

Member

Registered: 2026-01-02

Posts: 18

[Solved] Thunar (and others) cant find terminal

so after some time searching around internet i did not find anything that would work,
the issue i had is that my default text editor happens to be a cli application and when i try to launch a text document from Thunar it says that it cannot find a terminal for the application, launching the .desktop of the text editor does launch it in my preferred terminal emulator but only from 'rofi -show drun' other application launchers do not launch a window and i can't see the error because it does not spawn any error window, i have $TERMINAL set in my ~/.zshrc

Last edited by lobotomiteqt5 (2026-06-21 19:25:50)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,350

Re: [Solved] Thunar (and others) cant find terminal

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Thunar … minal_Here
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 2#p2107652
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=274444

it cannot find a terminal for the application

What is the *exact* error?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Default_applications

xdg-mime query default text/plain

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

lobotomiteqt5

Member

Registered: 2026-01-02

Posts: 18

Re: [Solved] Thunar (and others) cant find terminal

exact error is
                 "Error
        Failed to open file "<file>".
Unable to find terminal required for application."

$ xdg-mime query default text/plain
vim.desktop

helpers.rc already had
TerminalEmulator=kitty
in it

Last edited by lobotomiteqt5 (2026-06-21 17:19:48)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,350

Re: [Solved] Thunar (and others) cant find terminal

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … pplication
Seems the error is coming from some gtk routine, does

ln -s /usr/bin/kitty /usr/bin/gnome-terminal

work?
You can also attempt whether gtk (now/still) supports xdg-terminal-exec (as "known" terminal)

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions … in_neovim/ constituted the brute-force solution to the problem.
exporting anything in your zshrc does not necessarily expose it to the GUI shell/thunar

tr '\0' '\n' < /proc/$(pidof thunar)/environ

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

lobotomiteqt5

Member

Registered: 2026-01-02

Posts: 18

Re: [Solved] Thunar (and others) cant find terminal

symlink to gnome terminal worked for both thunar and other application launchers thank you