acroread 9 from jaunty's partner repository doesn't associate itself with PDF mime-types

[Ricardo Pérez López]

Binary package hint: acroread

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install acroread 9.1.0-7jaunty2 from the partner repository. You can see the "Adobe Reader 9" item on Applications->Office.

2. Right-click on any .pdf file. Expected behavior: There's a "Open with Adobe Reader 9" option. Actual behavior: There's not that option.

3. Click on "Open with other appliation...". The "Open with" dialog appears. Expected behavior: You can select "Adobe Reader 9" to open the .pdf file. Actual behavior: The "Adobe Reader 9" option is not in the list.

I can't reproduce this issue if I use the Adobe Reader 9 downloaded from the Adobe's website[1]. Moreover, the Adobe Reader 8 from the Adobe's website neither has this issue. Therefore, it seems to be a problem in the Canonical's package.

[1] http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/9.x/9.1/enu/AdbeRdr9.1.0-1_i386linux_enu.deb

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

The "problem" seems to be on the acroread.postinst file, lines 145-171. This is what Canonical's package contains:

case "$1" in
    configure)
        ReadInstallDir="/opt"
        MakeLibGnomeSpeechLinks "$ReadInstallDir" intellinux 2>/dev/null
        MakeLibLDAPLinks "$ReadInstallDir" 2>/dev/null

        #rm -f /usr/bin/acroread 2>/dev/null
        #ln -s "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/bin/acroread" /usr/bin/acroread 2>/dev/null

        #rm -f /etc/bash_completion.d/acroread.sh 2>/dev/null
        #ln -s "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Shell/acroread_tab" /etc/bash_completion.d/acroread.sh 2>/dev/null

        #rm -f /usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz 2>/dev/null
        #ln -s "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Shell/acroread.1.gz" /usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz 2>/dev/null

        #InstallIcons "$ReadInstallDir"
        #Canonical does not want us to associate MIME types because they say they do it themselves.
        #install_mime --novendor "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Support/AdobeReader.xml"

        #for i in application/pdf application/vnd.adobe.xfdf application/vnd.fdf application/vnd.adobe.xdp+xml application/vnd.adobe.pdx application/fdf application/xdp application/xfdf application/pdx; do
        # PATH="$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Reader/intellinux/bin:$PATH" xdg-mime default "AdobeReader.desktop" "$i" >/dev/null 2>&1
        #done

        #install_desktop_menu --novendor "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Support/AdobeReader.desktop"
        #Canonical does not want a Desktop icon.
        #install_desktop_icon --novendor "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Support/AdobeReader.desktop"
        #PATH="$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Reader/intellinux/bin:$PATH" xdg-icon-resource forceupdate >/dev/null 2>&1
        "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Browser/install_browser_plugin" -silent -global "$ReadInstallDir" >/dev/null 2>&1

And this is what Adobe's package contains:

    configure)
        ReadInstallDir="/opt"
        #MakeLibGnomeSpeechLinks "$ReadInstallDir" intellinux 2>/dev/null
        MakeLibLDAPLinks "$ReadInstallDir" 2>/dev/null

        rm -f /usr/bin/acroread 2>/dev/null
        ln -s "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/bin/acroread" /usr/bin/acroread 2>/dev/null

        rm -f /etc/bash_completion.d/acroread.sh 2>/dev/null
        ln -s "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Shell/acroread_tab" /etc/bash_completion.d/acroread.sh 2>/dev/null

        rm -f /usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz 2>/dev/null
        ln -s "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Shell/acroread.1.gz" /usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz 2>/dev/null

        InstallIcons "$ReadInstallDir"
                # Cannonical does not want us to associate MIME types because they say they do it themselves. Then so be it, atleast for 1
build.
        #install_mime --novendor "$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Resource/Support/AdobeReader.xml"

        for i in application/pdf application/vnd.adobe.xfdf application/vnd.fdf application/vnd.adobe.xdp+xml application/vnd.adobe.pdx app
lication/fdf application/xdp application/xfdf application/pdx; do
            PATH="$ReadInstallDir/A...

[Brian Thomason (brian-thomason)]

Hi,

The reason you may be experiencing different behavior in the DEB downloaded from Adobe and the one provided via the Partner repository:

PATH="$ReadInstallDir/Adobe/Reader9/Reader/intellinux/bin:$PATH" xdg-mime default "AdobeReader.desktop" "$i" >/dev/null 2>&1

We intentionally commented this out because it updates /usr/share/applications/defaults.list setting acroread as the default file handler. On Ubuntu systems, /usr/share/applications/defaults.list is a symlink to /etc/gnome/defaults.list and is handled by package management. This tool removes that symlink and places a regular file in its place breaking updates via package management. This is why it was intentionally removed.

However, we did create a debconf setting that allows this to be done automatically for you. So my questions are:

1.) Did you receive the debconf question to set acroread as your default PDF handler?
2.) Did you choose "Yes"?
3.) Is /usr/share/applications/defaults.list a symlink to /etc/gnome/defaults.list on your system?
4.) Does /etc/gnome/defaults.list contain an entry for acroread?

If you answered yes to all of these questions then there is a bug indeed. On my system and on those of QA when we tested this, this feature worked fine. After seeing this bug, Adobe tested and found no issues themselves on 9.04 but did on other distributions. This brings me to another question:

1.) Did you upgrade to 9.04 from another Ubuntu build?

Thanks,

Brian

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

Thanks for the reply, Brian. As you said, I had a /usr/share/applications/defaults.list file, so I just do the following:

1. sudo aptitude purge adobereader-enu
2. sudo rm /usr/share/applications/defaults.list
3. sudo ln -sf /etc/gnome/defaults.list /usr/share/applications/defaults.list
4. sudo aptitude install acroread (from partner) -> I choose "No" to the debconf question, because I DON'T want Adobe Reader to be my default PDF handler.
5. Log out and then log into GNOME.

However, after following the above steps, the problem is still here: I can't select Adobe Reader when I right-click on a PDF document to open with it.

To be precise: I don't want acroread to be my default PDF handler, but I want GNOME let me to select acroread to open the PDF files I select (using the currently-missing "Open with Adobe Reader" option of the PDF-file right-click menu).

I hope I have explained me better.

Thanks in advance.

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

Brian, have you get all the information you need in order to see the source of the issue?

I wish to open any PDF document using a "Open with Adobe Reader" option in the right-click menu of the document. By now, the only two options in the right-click menu are "Open with Document Viewer" and "Open with "GIMP Image Editor".

[Brian Thomason (brian-thomason)]

Hi Ricardo,

Yes, I have enough information, but I'm unable to reproduce... Adobe claims
they saw the behavior on 8.10 and 8.04 but not on Jaunty. I tested on
intrepid and it worked fine too. (with or without letting acroread set
itself as the default handler)

-Brian

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Ricardo Pérez López <email address hidden>wrote:

> Brian, have you get all the information you need in order to see the
> source of the issue?
>
> I wish to open any PDF document using a "Open with Adobe Reader" option
> in the right-click menu of the document. By now, the only two options in
> the right-click menu are "Open with Document Viewer" and "Open with
> "GIMP Image Editor".
>
> --
> acroread 9 from jaunty's partner repository doesn't associate itself with
> PDF mime-types
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/378135
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Canonical
> Partner Developers, which is a direct subscriber.
>

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

Thanks for your comment.

Do you see an "Open with Adobe Reader" option when you right-click on any PDF document? My problem is that I haven't that option.

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

(BTW, I'm always talking about the Jaunty version, not the Intrepid one.)

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

Brian: surprisingly, after upgrading my Jaunty today, now I can see the "Open with Adobe Reader 9" option in the right-click menu of any PDF document o_O.

I don't know why, but now the issue seems to be gone.

[Brian Thomason (brian-thomason)]

Oh oh oh it's magic, ya know :-) I have a feeling one of the mimetype
libraries had a bug in it. We'll be updating to 9.1.2 soon, and will
definitely be looking more closely to make sure this problem doesn't
resurface in our tests. Many thanks for the feedback.

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Ricardo Pérez López <email address hidden>wrote:

> Brian: surprisingly, after upgrading my Jaunty today, now I can see the
> "Open with Adobe Reader 9" option in the right-click menu of any PDF
> document o_O.
>
> I don't know why, but now the issue seems to be gone.
>
> --
> acroread 9 from jaunty's partner repository doesn't associate itself with
> PDF mime-types
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/378135
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Canonical
> Partner Developers, which is a direct subscriber.
>

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

Thank you very much for your attention and work, Brian!

FYR, I forgot to say: in addition to the system update I mentioned before, I upgraded to OpenOffice.org 3.1.0 using the packages from openoffice-pkg's PPA in Launchpad:

  deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

ricardo@kadath:~$ apt-cache policy openoffice.org
openoffice.org:
  Installed: 1:3.1.0-3ubuntu2~jaunty1
  Candidate: 1:3.1.0-3ubuntu2~jaunty1
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.1.0-3ubuntu2~jaunty1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:3.0.1-9ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages

But I don't know if this could be related with the issue.

Thanks again.