Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

Diiny · 2026-08-12 23:12:54

I'm not sure when this changed, but I tried to save a webpage and when I clicked the 'enter' key, the dialog box didn't do anything. I have to use the mouse to click 'save'.

I tried again, and could only get it to save by using 'alt-s'.

How can I get firefox to use the enter key on the save button, like it use to?

Last edited by Diiny (2026-08-13 20:53:49)

V1del · 2026-08-13 00:06:07

Assuming you are talking about the save as dialog, that is controlled by xdg-portal implementations recently, which exact dialog do you have? This works just fine here, using the KDE portal/picker.

seth · 2026-08-13 06:29:13

Does the keyboard work at all?
(could be a focus stealing issue)

Diiny · 2026-08-13 13:50:05

V1del wrote:

Assuming you are talking about the save as dialog, that is controlled by xdg-portal implementations recently, which exact dialog do you have? This works just fine here, using the KDE portal/picker.

I have no idea which dialog I have, how can I find out?

seth wrote:

Does the keyboard work at all?
(could be a focus stealing issue)

Yes, I can use 'alt-s' to activate the save button, so I assume focus being stolen is not the issue.

seth · 2026-08-13 13:56:27

pacman -Qs portal
ps aux | grep portal

On X11 "xprop" might help if the above remains ambigious

Diiny · 2026-08-13 14:24:49

seth wrote:

pacman -Qs portal
ps aux | grep portal

local/xdg-desktop-portal 1.22.1-2
    Desktop integration portals for sandboxed apps
local/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk 1.15.3-1
    A backend implementation for xdg-desktop-portal using GTK

diin         994  0.0  0.2 485288 17928 ?        Ssl  Aug12   0:00 /usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal
diin        1013  0.0  0.1 538860  8960 ?        Ssl  Aug12   0:00 /usr/lib/xdg-document-portal
root        1019  0.0  0.0   2988  2072 ?        Ss   Aug12   0:00 fusermount3 -o rw,nosuid,nodev,fsname=portal,auto_unmount,subtype=portal -- /run/user/1000/doc
diin       83217  0.0  0.0   6888  4336 pts/6    S+   07:21   0:00 grep portal

seth · 2026-08-13 14:44:25

A backend implementation for xdg-desktop-portal using GTK

No portals here, but the browser defaults to what GTK tries to pass off as a file dialog and no, you cannot just hit enter to save anything w/ that

Diiny · 2026-08-13 15:04:16

seth wrote:

and no, you cannot just hit enter to save anything w/ that

I'm not understanding why all other programs under arch have 'enter' as a default for a dialog button, except firefox. Or even why they would change it.

What can I do to make it work again?

seth · 2026-08-13 15:07:43

What are "all other programs under arch"? Qt ones?
https://archlinux.org/packages/?sort=&q=desktop-portal-

There's no fixing the GTK UX disaster.

Edit: for firefox specifically, look for the widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal* config options in about:config

Last edited by seth (2026-08-13 15:09:55)

Diiny · 2026-08-13 15:43:47

seth wrote:

What are "all other programs under arch"? Qt ones?

Not sure of what they are written in, but just off the top of my head...

qBittorrent, freeCAD, prusa-slicer, evince, MPLAB, gimp.

seth wrote:

Edit: for firefox specifically, look for the widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal* config options in about:config

I found them, but there is no listing of what the values mean.

widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker	0		
widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.location	        2		
widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.mime-handler	2		
widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.native-messaging	0		
widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.open-uri	        2		
widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.settings          2

I guess I'm not fully understanding what you're hinting at. So there might not be a way to get firefox to work like it used to?

seth · 2026-08-13 16:30:01

widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker

You're actually not using the xdg-portal picker?
Try to enable it - at least evince and gimp are gtk applications

Diiny · 2026-08-13 16:49:27

seth wrote:

widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker
You're actually not using the xdg-portal picker?
Try to enable it - at least evince and gimp are gtk applications

They only value that lets me use the keyboard (I tried 0-9), to start the open dialog box (ctrl-o), is 0. But it still doesn't allow the use of the enter key.

Weird that gimp and evince don't suffer from the same thing.

seth · 2026-08-13 17:58:52

IO xdg-desktop-portal doesn't work at all - how do you start what session?
If the answer involves startx/xinit, see the last link below.

Diiny · 2026-08-13 19:27:32

seth wrote:

IO xdg-desktop-portal doesn't work at all - how do you start what session?
If the answer involves startx/xinit, see the last link below.

Yes, I'm using 'startx' to start the window manager.

I see the last link below says 'Fix your xinitrc'. When I click it, it goes to the xinit wiki page. But that doesn't say anything about fixing my xinit. I also don't see anything mentioning 'portal'. I still don't know how to fix this.

Why would the other programs you mentioned still work?

You also said 'no portals here', but I have 'xdg-desktop-portal 1.22.1-2', does that not count as a portal? What should I have install?

seth · 2026-08-13 19:31:33

Second blue note on what to include at least - in doubt post your xinitrc for review.

*I* do not have any portal installation, I mentioned the local situation as reference.
If FF doesn't use portal it's a bug in it's internal file dialog implementation.

Diiny · 2026-08-13 19:49:21

seth wrote:

Second blue note on what to include at least - in doubt post your xinitrc for review.
*I* do not have any portal installation, I mentioned the local situation as reference.
If FF doesn't use portal it's a bug in it's internal file dialog implementation.

# Start with numlock off.
numlockx off

# start some nice programs
if [ -d "$xinitdir"/xinitrc.d ] ; then
    for f in "$xinitdir/xinitrc.d"/?*.sh ; do
        [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
    done
    unset f
fi

# Start window manager.
exec twm

So you're saying Firefox took out the ability to use default buttons in linux?

seth · 2026-08-13 20:09:14

Is that your entire xinitrc? Where is "$xinitdir" even set?
Are you actually running twm?

It's important that /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-systemd-user.sh gets sourced, otherwise you end up w/ a broken session bus what will break xdg-desktop-portal (which is why you can only use "0" in the config)

I don't know what FF did - it's likely a bug but somebody might have figured that it's too confusing or users might accidentally hit the enter button or what not.
For now we'll focus on fixing your session and then see how the portal dialog behaves (which will also allow you to use a different dialog implementation.

Diiny · 2026-08-13 20:17:51

seth wrote:

Is that your entire xinitrc? Where is "$xinitdir" even set?
Are you actually running twm?

Yes I'm running twm to reduce the system resources needed. The other windows mangers seem overly bloated and slow.

I looked over the '.xinit' wiki and I can't find anything saying I need to set '$xinitdir". I can't even find 'xinitdir' listed on the page. What am I supposed to set this to?

seth · 2026-08-13 20:25:02

The wiki does not address the unique brokeness of your private xinitrc wrt bash basics, no.
It just explains what needs to happen.

$xinitdir is a variable but it's nowhere set.
Also while technically not relevant for the initrc, we'll add a shebang.

#!/bin/sh

# this here is critically missing in your file
xinitdir="/etc/X11/xinit"

# Start with numlock off.
numlockx off

# start some nice programs
if [ -d "$xinitdir"/xinitrc.d ] ; then
    for f in "$xinitdir/xinitrc.d"/?*.sh ; do
        [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
    done
    unset f
fi

# Start window manager.
exec twm

Diiny · 2026-08-13 20:27:39

I've added the line as well as the shebang, and still experience the same behaviour.

seth · 2026-08-13 20:31:46

Did you
1. restart the session
2. change the widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker to 2 (or 1)?

Diiny · 2026-08-13 20:35:06

Yes, logged out and logged back in.

Yes I have kept that set to 1 while we are testing.

EDIT: I have the ability to pull up the open file dialog (which was impossible before, if it wasn't set to 0).

But enter for the default button still does not work.

Last edited by Diiny (2026-08-13 20:38:14)

seth · 2026-08-13 20:40:52

still experience the same behaviour

If that means "dialog doesn't show up w/ widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker=1" please post the output of

echo $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
loginctl session-status
and your system journal.
sudo journalctl -b | nc termbin.com 9999

If it means "dialog doesn't respond to the enter key",
replace xdg-desktop-portal-gtk w/ https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … rtal-lxqt/
The file dialog should look drastically different (and also behave differently) afterwards.

Last edited by seth (2026-08-13 20:43:14)

Diiny · 2026-08-13 20:53:26

Ty Seth, it has started working.

I replaced my copy of .xinit with your copy of '.xinit' and it started working.

The only thing I can assume is that the placement of 'xinitdir="/etc/X11/xinit"' needed to be after the shebang and not before launching the windows manager.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-08-12 23:12:54

Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#2 2026-08-13 00:06:07

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#3 2026-08-13 06:29:13

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#4 2026-08-13 13:50:05

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#5 2026-08-13 13:56:27

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#6 2026-08-13 14:24:49

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#7 2026-08-13 14:44:25

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#8 2026-08-13 15:04:16

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#9 2026-08-13 15:07:43

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#10 2026-08-13 15:43:47

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#11 2026-08-13 16:30:01

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#12 2026-08-13 16:49:27

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#13 2026-08-13 17:58:52

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#14 2026-08-13 19:27:32

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#15 2026-08-13 19:31:33

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#16 2026-08-13 19:49:21

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#17 2026-08-13 20:09:14

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#18 2026-08-13 20:17:51

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#19 2026-08-13 20:25:02

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#20 2026-08-13 20:27:39

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#21 2026-08-13 20:31:46

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#22 2026-08-13 20:35:06

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#23 2026-08-13 20:40:52

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

#24 2026-08-13 20:53:26

Re: Firefox doesn't allow 'enter' as default action [SOLVED]

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