Synapse won't open files

[grampa]

On Ubuntu 16.04 (Unity DE) LibreOffice files or jpegs won't open when you hit enter.
There is no problem with opening apps.

[James Caird (james-caird)]

I have this problem too.

[Marco Nolden (marco-n)]

Same problem with text files if they have a custom extension which I have already associated with gvim. Double click in file manager works, but Synapse doesn't open them

[vdca (vdca)]

It seems to open files which were created after the upgrade to 16.04, but not older ones. If you run synapse from the terminal, you can see that older files are parsed as if their content was read from terminal, instead of launching them with the appropriate program. I've tried rebuilding the updatedb index from scratch, but didn't help.

[tellapu (tellapu)]

I get this error when I try to open an existing file (created before the new install of 16.04):

Txt-file:
[WARN 11:42:00.473477] [common-actions:110] Failed to execute child process "/home/.../SMF" (No such file or directory)

Or with other files:
/home/....ie.doc: 1: /home/....ie.doc: ��ࡱ�: not found
/home/....ie.doc: 1: /home/....ie.doc: ��: not found
/home/....ie.doc: 14: /home/....ie.doc: Syntax error: "&" unexpected

Opening of pdf-files, application, mp3-files seems to work.
Hopefully there will be a solution soon. I use Synapse constantly.

[tellapu (tellapu)]

If anybody could help with this, we would be very grateful as it is difficult to work around this bug. Thanks in advance!

[Martin Neff (martin-neff-deactivatedaccount)]

Can confirm this, too, on a fresh Linux Mint 18 installation.
The only thing which comes in my mind, is that this issue might have something to do with mimeapps.list or something in this direction. But this is just a long-shot guess.

[marteen (marteen.book)]

It won't help but I confirm the same problem with a fresh Ubuntu xfce 16.04 64 bits installation.
Synapse open any application.

Synapse find files. Open the pdf (evince), the folder (thunar).

But, don't open : .odt (libreoffice writer), .ods (libreoffice calc), .mp3, .flac, .jpeg.

[Christian Howd (chris-howd)]

I have a very similar problem. Synapse seems to open PDF files for me, but not .odt LibreOffice files. It also won't open video files or mp3s. I usually have to launch VLC then drag the media files from Synapse to VLC.

[tellapu (tellapu)]

This bug still exists and bothers me very much. Is there anybody who could help to fix this? I can help with testing or reporting. Thanks in advance!

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

Synapse broke how things work with files with executable permission. If it has executable permission it tries to execute file instead of opening file with relevant app. First you have to remove all executable permission from all of 50,00000 files and then it may work!

Don't fix which is not broken!

[Jérémy Munsch (jeremy-munsch)]

This is related to a commit i've done before http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~synapse-core/synapse-project/trunk/revision/616

How ever this would need work to identify what is really a script code or not.
Maybe using xdg-mime query filetype.

I don't really have an idea of a reliable blueprint on this nor the time to code that i'm afraid.

[Akshit Sharma (asagent7)]

Ubuntu 16.04 (Mate DE): searches correctly but doesn't open files that exist in a mounted partition.

[tellapu (tellapu)]

This is still a big issue and forced me to use another launcher (Albert). But the alternatives have not convinced me yet, either, but at least they open the files (when they are found). If would be grateful if a solution for this problem could be found. Thanks for your efforts in advance!

[Santiago Ivanic (santux)]

I just upgraded to 16.04 and have a lot of files on a ntsf partition that synapse is not able to open. I solved it by adding 'noexec' in the options column of /etc/fstab for that partition.

on a ext4 filesystem if the file has execution permission it will try to execute instead of open
So I guess chmod -x to all your non-executable files should be a workaround

[tellapu (tellapu)]

The ntsf-partition-solution sounds easy. But I use ext4 with Ubuntu 16.04. A quick internet search and an attempt to remove all executable permissions from my files (documents, pics, music, videos, ...) in many folder and subfolder was not successful. Any tips?

[tellapu (tellapu)]

Any help regarding how to remove all executable permissions from my files (documents, pics, music, videos, ...) in many folders and subfolders (without changing the permissions of the folder themselves) would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[tellapu (tellapu)]

A workaround that seems to help in my case:
cd “folder path” (in which you want to change permissions of the files)
find . -type f -exec chmod -x {} \;

Source: chmod - How to remove executable bit recursively from files (not directories) - Super User
https://superuser.com/questions/234647/how-to-remove-executable-bit-recursively-from-files-not-directories#

[kye burke (gamer2345679)]

I get the error saying You must attach synapse before executing a script! And I already have! PLEASE help someone!