Copying and pasting files between desktop and Nautilus does not work

[Dariusz Gadomski]

[Impact]

 * After upstream Nautilus has reverted the following commit [1] related to upstream bug [2] the desktop icons extension lost it's ability to copy to/from nautilus.

 * This is related to the fact that before there was some metadata passed along in the clipboard along with text data. This was causing issues with compatibility with some applications that were not expecting any metadata (MIME type in this case) was glued to the text clipboard contents. Hence, it was reverted upstream [3].

 * Fixing the root cause of this issue required changes to Nautilus [3], gnome-shell [4] and desktop-icons [5] [6]. Nautilus and gnome-shell parts are already implemented and present in Hirsute and Impish.

[Test Plan]

 1) Make sure desktop-icons extension is enabled.
 2) Open nautilus window and copy any file from there by right-clicking and selecting "Copy" from the popup menu.
 3) Right-click on desktop and select "Paste" from the context menu.

Expected result: selected file is copied to the desktop.
Actual result: "Paste" item is disabled in the menu.

[Where problems could occur]

 * Mixing a version of nautilus without commit [3] and fixed version of desktop-icons may still lead to a scenario when copying will not work.

 * Any extension/application copying to desktop using the smuggled-in-text clipboard behavior should be expected to stop working.

[Other Info]

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests/289
[2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/634
[3] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests/573
[4] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1321
[5] https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/-/merge_requests/186
[6] https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/-/merge_requests/195

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Bug 1843588 already has a task for gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons so can you clarify why this bug is required?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Also gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons is not used in hirsute and impish. They use gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng instead.

[Dariusz Gadomski (dgadomski)]

Thank you Mathew. I assumed it's the same package in later releases.

The reason behind splitting the bug was the fact that I believe these are 2 separate problems by coincidence having their root causes in similar portions of code.

Bug #1843588 is focal specific and is about altered contents of clipboard and fixing it requires fixing reverting the change in nautilus.

This one on the other hand is about not being able to copy from the desktop to nautilus and vice versa. And fixing this should require fixing:

For focal (beside fixing bug #1843588):
* gnome-shell
* gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons

For hirsute & impish:
* gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons is only being maintained for focal. All other Ubuntu releases should use gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng

[Dariusz Gadomski (dgadomski)]

I have backported the gnome-shell fix for focal, however I'll wait with uploading until desktop-icons extension is fixed to push them together.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Reopened the primary task for gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons. Although focal is still the last release to use that and it is invalid for later releases, I noticed you can't actually find this bug unless the primary task is kept open.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

I just accomplished the steps in the test plan on latest jammy, and couldn't reproduce the issue. The file I copied in Nautilus could successfully be pasted onto the desktop.

@Dariusz: Should gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng be marked "Fix Released" for the development version?

(If it's fixed, I'm not able to tell which upstream commit(s) makes the difference, though.)

[Dariusz Gadomski (dgadomski)]

Thank you for this observation Gunnar. Indeed, looks like its fixed for jammy. I'll try to figure out the right commit and backport it.

[Dariusz Gadomski (dgadomski)]

It seems this has been fixed with https://gitlab.com/rastersoft/desktop-icons-ng/-/commit/4c6de6a39f3e0d7ccff4399cb06f4bcd6485c047

I'll look into a way of backporting it into impish.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yes the fix is in gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng >= 34

[Dan (devildan)]

Hi,
We have a lot of computer using Ubuntu 20.04, in all of them, we can't copy/paste between Desktop and Nautilus, Focal is impacted, when we will have a fix ? a patch ? please ? We need to deploy it on all the computers in emergency.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It looks like a fix for focal is still awaiting review in https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/-/merge_requests/195

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 2022-02-11 10:07, Daniel van Vugt wrote:
> It looks like a fix for focal is still awaiting review in
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/-/merge_requests/195

I applied that one in a PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons

but it didn't help. So maybe that's not it, after all. Or there is more into it.

[Dan (devildan)]

Oh dear, do you have a vision to know if the fix is on? Do you have any idea if there will be one? Because there are many of us who are affected by this problem. And we have just switched our park to 20.04 :/

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

I just mechanically applied the MR which Daniel pointed at. Let's see if Daniel or Dariusz is able to say more.

Please note that the desktop icons package used in 20.04 is not the same as in 22.04. 22.04 uses a fork, and the projects have diverged quite a bit by now.

[Dan (devildan)]

Any news ? :'(

[Dariusz Gadomski (dgadomski)]

Hey Dan. I've been trying to backport it to 21.10 (available in ppa:dgadomski/lp1948008-desktop-icons) but it seems to work only one-way for now. I am looking into this.

20.04 on the other hand seems even more complicated, I will look into it right after I get 21.10 working, but can't provide any estimates at this point.

[Dan (devildan)]

Hello,
Thank you for your feedback.
I hope we will have a solution, which we can deploy across our entire fleet. I thank you and wish you good luck. Thank you for your work on this bug.