file-roller cannot open filetypes with derived mimetypes (e.g. epub and ods files)

[Reece H. Dunn]

Given three files A, B and C, where A is a zip file (a.zip), B is an ePub file (b.epub) and C is an ODF Spreadsheet file (c.ods) ...

All files have "Open With > Archive Manager" as a menu option in nautilus.

This is likely due to the shared-mime-info database having the ePub and ODS mimetypes as <sub-class-of type="application/zip"/>.

File A will open successfully, while files B and C report "Could not open 'A'" / "Archive type not supported". However, renaming B and C so they have a .zip extension will cause the files to be opened correctly.

This is likely due to file-roller checking the filetype to load by extension, not magic. This is indeed the case as giving a text file a .zip extension causes file-roller to report "An error occurred while loading the archive" (End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on the last disk(s) of this archive.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: file-roller 3.2.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CheckboxSubmission: 5434425585a31b50d9fa7c3153a37fe1
CheckboxSystem: b845c366ea09c60efa3a45c1b5b21525
Date: Mon Nov 7 21:12:54 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100318)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: file-roller
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-09-24 (44 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Emmanuel Castro (emmanuel-castro)]

No, when I read the #26662, I don't understand why with this bug would be a duplicate of #26662.

In the present case, if one renames the .ods file to .zip, it works.
It is only that File-Roller should have a look inside the file before rejecting it.

[Enrico Segre (enrico-segre)]

There was a button for it, I removed the link to #26662 as duplicate.

[Eli Schwartz (eschwartz)]

I have both File Roller and Engrampa Archive Manager installed, as I have both the Unity and Mate desktops installed.

File Roller dos not open ePubs, Engrampa does.

Maybe you should talk to the people at Mate.

[Eli Schwartz (eschwartz)]

Forgot to mention before, ePubs are not opened EVEN IF I RENAME TO .ZIP!!!

[Rob Hills (rhills)]

Old bug, just tripped me up after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10, now can't open a .epub file but I can open it via a link (ln -s xyz.epub xyz.tgz).

[Tim Wahrendorff (tim.timwahrendorff)]

Bug still exists in 18.04

[Nicolas Göddel (ngoeddel)]

This bug is annoying. Please fix it. I am using 18.04 LTS and often need to open ODT files.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The issue should reported upstream on https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/issues