"main menu" editor, application properties not opening

[selectstar]

The properties window for any application in the "main menu" editor does not open at all
I am on 11.10 AMD64

[Robert (baumgaro)]

same for me - 11.10 AMD64

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[selectstar (martinsarsini)]

This is bug is ridiculous, I am so surprised that nobody else had encountered the same issue. Perhaps this functionality is not much used, hence why Ubuntu's developers are not fixing this simple bug?

[selectstar (martinsarsini)]

opening alacarte from the terminal and clicking on any of the items property button I get the following error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 382, in on_edit_properties_activate
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1239, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

[selectstar (martinsarsini)]

ok, solved
the "properties" button uses gnome-desktop-item-edit, which is shipped with gnome-panel
I had to run sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

the mystery is why Ubuntu didn't give any feedback whatsoever using that button, if a button silently fails... that's a bug

[Vadim Rutkovsky (roignac)]

This is duplicate of bug 826049