mime-types are hosed; can I fix them?

[teledyn]

Binary package hint: nautilus

I don't know how it got this way, but ALMOST all of the mime-types displaying in Nautilus are wrong, listing video and mp3 files as text files and only offering text editors as 'players' -- I don't want to clear this user account and re-install (ie the Windows approach) but I can't find any obvious user-space file that would explain this behaviour! Where does Nautilus get its mime-type information? Is there some way to restore defaults? If I knew the files, perhaps I could copy them over from another account.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Aug 21 08:26:12 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
NonfreeKernelModules: wl fglrx
Package: nautilus 1:2.22.5.1-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-24-rt i686

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and helping to make Ubuntu better. Examining the information you have given us, this does not appear to be a bug report so we are closing it and converting it to a question in the support tracker. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but it would make more sense to raise problems you are having in the support tracker at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu if you are uncertain if they are bugs. For help on reporting bugs, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#When%20not%20to%20file%20a%20bug.

[teledyn (garym-teledyn)]

thanks -- I'll bookmark that now.

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 8:38 AM, Pedro Villavicencio <email address hidden>wrote:

> Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. Examining the information you have given us, this does
> not appear to be a bug report so we are closing it and converting it to
> a question in the support tracker. We appreciate the difficulties you
> are facing, but it would make more sense to raise problems you are
> having in the support tracker at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu if
> you are uncertain if they are bugs. For help on reporting bugs, see
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#When%20not%20to%20file%20a%20bug
> .
>
> ** Changed in: nautilus (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Invalid
>
> ** Converted to question:
>
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+question/80599
>
> --
> mime-types are hosed; can I fix them?
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/416916
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “nautilus” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: nautilus
>
> I don't know how it got this way, but ALMOST all of the mime-types
> displaying in Nautilus are wrong, listing video and mp3 files as text files
> and only offering text editors as 'players' -- I don't want to clear this
> user account and re-install (ie the Windows approach) but I can't find any
> obvious user-space file that would explain this behaviour! Where does
> Nautilus get its mime-type information? Is there some way to restore
> defaults? If I knew the files, perhaps I could copy them over from another
> account.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Fri Aug 21 08:26:12 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
> ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
> NonfreeKernelModules: wl fglrx
> Package: nautilus 1:2.22.5.1-0ubuntu3
> PackageArchitecture: i386
> ProcEnviron:
>
> PATH=/home/username/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
> LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: nautilus
> Uname: Linux 2.6.24-24-rt i686
>

[teledyn (garym-teledyn)]

heh ... it may not be a bug, but I think there is a valid feature request here because it's happened again, only differently and now all my mp3s are listed as "MP3 Documents" with the mimetype application/x-extension-mp3 which does not trigger preview -- for a casual user, this would be utterly perplexing and even for me with 20 years Unix experience it's a tough nut to crack.

here's the feature request: How about a "reset to factory default" option for Mime-types somewhere under the System Admin suite?

[teledyn (garym-teledyn)]

that reset switch could be as simple as deleting the mime.cache, but we might want to keep a backup of the magic file and any others that might get changed by rogue applications