[gutsy] Cannot change default file manager from Dolphin

[Luke Plant]

In a Gutsy system upgraded from Feisty, I am unable to change the file manager away from Dolphin to anything else. My changes revert.

Steps:
1) In Konqueror configuration or control panel, choose 'File Associations' module
2) Select inode/directory
3) Choose Dolphin and press 'Move down', so that Konqueror is at the top. Press 'Apply'
4) Close the dialog or switch to another module, then come back.

Results:
 - changes are not persisted - Dolphin is at the top again.
 - opening up a folder or FTP site uses Dolphin instead of Konqueror

I have no idea how to work around this, or further diagnose -- I don't know how this works in KDE at all.

Luke

[Mario Young (mayeco)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at [WWW] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in dolphin.

[Marco Rodrigues (gothicx)]

I think the bug is more in konqueror...

[Luke Plant (spookylukey)]

Actually, this is definitely not a bug in dolphin, but more generally in kdelibs (or something), as I've discovered exactly the same thing is happening with all file associations. They appear to change, but when I go back into it, it has reverted. The same thing happens if I do the changes in the 'File Associations' module under 'KDE Components' in kcontrol as well.

[James D (james-d1)]

Simply deleting Dolphin from that list is a work-around that works (for me). Otherwise, try using apt-get to remove Dolphin itself -- if you're not actually using it (and quite frankly, I don't see why anyone would, given the existence of Konqueror and Krusader), it's only eating up space on your HDD.

[Luke Plant (spookylukey)]

But that workaround doesn't work for all the other file associations, unless I wanted to remove lots of other applications.

Can anyone point me to some docs that tell me how this stuff is supposed to work, so I could manually create the correct files or try to debug this?

[Stéphane Magnenat (stephane.magnenat)]

I also have this problem. I think it is important, because konqueror was the default file manager for years and provides several features dolphin lacks. There should be an easy way to choose, and this option should be available in system-settings.

[Ibai Q R (ibaiqr)]

  Hello. I also had that problem (first I did not know the option to change at all), then came up here and saw the first comment, did this and it wouldn't work. So I opened konqueror as root by 'sudo konqueror' and then repeated the steps here. I don't know how/wether it will work when I restart the computer, but It has worked for me right now, now the list is in the right order and I can open my folders with konqueror instead of dolphin. I can not shut down right now to test persistance of this change, but I think it should do. I also upgraded from ... dapper-edgy-feisty-.

  So, try opening konqueror as root and making the changes there, everything should be ok.

  Wether this works or not, I think it is a bug which should be corrected.

[Ibai Q R (ibaiqr)]

  Also I would put a little notice on the release notes so that people can now how to change back to konqueror... There's some things one does not very often and I personally always forget, and really one gets accustomed to konqueror. Think that dolphin should still grow a little bit, but of course, I finished upgrading today, so can not say.

[Luke Plant (spookylukey)]

OK, I have got to the bottom of this, at least for me.

File associations, I finally discovered, are stored in ~/.kde/share/config/profilerc. Somehow, that file had become owned by 'root'. I do not know how that occurred -- I do not remember doing anything that might have caused this e.g. running Konqueror as root, and then changing file associations. I don't know if I have *ever* run konqueror as root -- I'm a shell person. But anyway...

The work around is to do this in a terminal:

sudo chown yourusername ~/.kde/share/config/profilerc

(replacing 'yourusername' with your actual login name).

After this, file associations work fine. Regarding Dolphin. I also had to change my 'Win+Home' shortcut to use Konqueror (I cannot remember if I had changed this to be Dolphin myself or if it was changed for me) - do this under "System Settings --> Keyboard and mouse --> Keyboard Shortcuts", and in the "Command Shortcuts" tab change the shortcut from 'Dolphin' to 'Home folder', which was under 'Lost & found" for me.

There is still definitely a bug here, even if it was my own error that caused that file ownership to change -- when file associations are saved to the profilerc file, there should be an error message if the file could not be written to.

[Ibai Q R (ibaiqr)]

  Mmm.. I'm not sure wether this was the problem for me, my profilerc is not currently root-owned, but I don't quite remember wether I changed it some time. I know I had to do this with some other rc files anyway, so maybe this was one of them. So you think some config files permissions could maybe be changed during upgrade? I had lots of problems this kind, with preferences which you can change but only root can change but root can not really change and some weird things the like... For me I got the impression that my system does not have very clear what is for root to do and what is for normal users to do sometimes.
  Thanks for your solution.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Not an issue in Intrepid.