Firefox changes application preferences from Evince to Acoread

[Christopher]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Every time I start Firefox 3.5.2, Acodread becomes the default reader, even though I have changed it to Evince. My preferences, in other words are not being saved.

When I installed the Adobe Reader, I did not opt for it to become the default application. It (Acoread) also has the bad habit of crashing Firefox when the opened pdf is closed. Evince does not do this.

This is not related to any recent update as the problem has persisted.

Karmic 2.6.31-7-generic

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Aug 25 09:17:06 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: firefox-3.0 (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-7.27-generic
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-7-generic i686

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. Sometimes Firefox profiles can become corrupt and/or extensions can conflict. Could you please try this with a new profile and see if the problem still exists? You do not need to delete your old profile to test. If this helps, you might want to try to disable all your extensions and re-enable them one by one until you find the problematic one.
firefox-3.5 -ProfileManager

[Christopher (soft-kristal)]

Wouldn't you know it, I can't reproduce the bug in my current profile today. Even after a complete restart it's holding at Evince. When it re-occurs, which is likely as the Adobe reader - even when not set to default when installed, tries to do so.

I installed it via the Synaptic Package Manager, rather than from the Adobe website. I do have another profile set up, if needed.

[Christopher (soft-kristal)]

Still happens, even a fresh install of Karmic did not make a difference. I can't predict when it changes from evince to acoread; it just does without any perceptible pattern.

For the time being, I've disabled the Adobe Reader plugin, as I really don't want this to keep happening. I'll reoort any additional strange behavior.

[Christopher (soft-kristal)]

Here's a screenshot of my Preferences-Applications. Earlier this morning I checked before clicking on a similar link and the same window was set to Evince (Document Viewer) as default.

As you can see, it changed to Adobe - without my intervention. I have another screenshot showing Document Viewer as default if you want it.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern at all as to what links change the Preferences. These links are in Thunderbird which open a FF window.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for firefox-3.5 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Christopher (soft-kristal)]

This bug is still persisting. Firefox changes my preferences for opening a PDF from Default (evince) to Adobe Reader. Sometimes it originates from a Thunderbird attachment, even though the preferences in Thunderbird are also set to Evince as the default PDF viewer.