doesn't respect default browser

[Greg A]

Binary package hint: apport

My default browser is chromium (from the natty repositories) however firefox is always opened by apport.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: apport 1.18-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-5.32-generic 2.6.38-rc6
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-5-generic x86_64
ApportLog:

Architecture: amd64
CrashReports:
 0:0:0:362494:2011-02-22 08:35:02.637370000 +0000:2011-02-24 12:59:50.008888009 +0000:/var/crash/_usr_bin_Xorg.0.crash
 600:1000:1000:5388976:2011-02-24 13:00:39.773493000 +0000:2011-02-24 13:00:40.773493000 +0000:/var/crash/_usr_bin_compiz.1000.crash
 600:1000:1000:55392:2011-02-24 13:01:53.136793000 +0000:2011-02-24 13:01:57.864928021 +0000:/var/crash/_usr_lib_ubuntuone-client_ubuntuone-syncdaemon.1000.crash
Date: Thu Feb 24 13:09:08 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110127)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: apport

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Could you run the following commands in a terminal and send the output:

pgrep -l -x -u $(id -u)
gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command

This is how apport guesses which web browser to use.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Sorry, that should have been:

pgrep -l -x -u $(id -u) "gnome-panel|gconfd-2"
gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command

[Greg A (etulfetulf)]

greg@greg-natty:~$ pgrep -l -x -u $(id -u) "gnome-panel|gconfd-2"
1425 gconfd-2

greg@greg-natty:~$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command
/usr/bin/chromium-browser %s

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Thanks. Can you confirm that you can still reproduce this problem in the same environment where you ran those commands? According to the code, it should be working.

Also, does "gnome-open http://www.ubuntu.com/" open Chromium or Firefox for you?

[Greg A (etulfetulf)]

I can still reproduce this problem. The gnome-open command opens Firefox.

Thank you for looking at this for me.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

if gnome-open does the wrong thing, I don't think there is a bug in apport. Let's look at this in the context of libgnome.

[Ronald McCollam (fader)]

I can confirm this behavior; it's been the case for several weeks at least on natty and is still occurring as of 2011-03-11.

The gconf key seems to be getting set properly. On my system (allegedly configured to use Chromium as the default browser):

fader@cavil:~$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command
/usr/bin/chromium-browser %s

If I click a URL or gnome-open one, I get Firefox. Interestingly, if I go to the Firefox preferences, it detects that it is not the default browser. Setting it as the default causes the gconf key to be updated:

fader@cavil:~$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command
firefox %s

(As expected, URLs continue to open in Firefox at this point.)

Chrome recognizes that it is no longer the default browser and is happy to change the gconf key back for me:

fader@cavil:~$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command
/usr/bin/chromium-browser %s

However, URLs are still opened by Firefox at this point.

I poked around in gconf a bit and just got more confused.

fader@cavil:~$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec
/usr/bin/chromium-browser

fader@cavil:~$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/ftp/command
firefox %s

(Admittedly, the FTP handler is likely to be unrelated to this directly. But it is interesting.)

[Ronald McCollam (fader)]

Aha! The setting is correctly controlled by gnome-default-applications-properties. Running this (or launching 'Preferred Applications' from a menu/Unity) contains a "Web Browser" setting that was set to Firefox. Changing this to Chromium did the right thing.

I'm not at all sure what gnome-default-applications-properties is setting that the browsers aren't, but that seems to be the solution.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the gconf key is deprecated, GNOME uses the mimetypes now for the web browser and email client, there is a similar bug on xdg-open, bug #670128, gnome-open uses gio and should do the right thing though

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the default browser should by setting the x-scheme-handler types in the .local directory

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

@Greg Auger - can you check your browser setting in Preferred Applications?

[Greg A (etulfetulf)]

Yes in Preferred Applications Firefox was set as default. Changing it to Chromium made Apport work.

[eixmg (ei-xmg)]

same problem ;(