gvfs-backends not installed with GIMP

[ed20900]

Kubuntu does not ship with GIMP.
GIMP package has gvfs-backends as a suggestion:
Suggests: gimp-help-en | gimp-help, gimp-data-extras, gvfs-backends, libasound2

gvfs-backends is needed for the «Open Location» functionality.

I installed that package and rebooted the computer, but still I can't open an image (tried with https://kubuntu.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/9c1b/zesty_banner.png).
I keep getting this message (spanish locale):
La apertura de «https://kubuntu.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/9c1b/zesty_banner.png» ha fallado:
No se pudo abrir «https://kubuntu.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/9c1b/zesty_banner.png» para lectura: No existe el archivo o el directorio

What else do I need?
I do not see anything in logs.
/usr/lib/gvfs/ contains all the binaries, including gvfsd-http.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.04
Package: kubuntu-desktop 1.347
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-32.36-generic 4.10.17
Uname: Linux 4.10.0-32-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.4-0ubuntu4.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Mon Aug 14 19:57:15 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-07-31 (744 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20150218.1)
SourcePackage: kubuntu-meta
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to zesty on 2017-05-02 (104 days ago)

[ed20900 (ed20900)]

An strace of GIMP, grepping the output for "gvfs" prints the following lines:

stat("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgvfsdbus.so", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=202912, ...}) = 0
stat("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgvfsdbus.so", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=202912, ...}) = 0
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgvfsdbus.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 9
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/tls/x86_64/libgvfscommon.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/tls/x86_64", 0x7fff083b5150) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/tls/libgvfscommon.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/tls", 0x7fff083b5150) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/x86_64/libgvfscommon.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/x86_64", 0x7fff083b5150) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/libgvfscommon.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 9
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gvfs/modules", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_DIRECTORY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

[ed20900 (ed20900)]

All right. It actually works with gvfs-backends package installed, but it refuses to download images using HTTPS. I have to use plain HTTP to download the image.

But then again, not having gvfs-backends installed by default adds an extra step to having GIMP working with all features.

[Lewis Cowles (lewiscowles)]

A Friend just contacted me over email to let me know that in 20.04 this is still an issue for them...

I am unsure how they got the error message for this, but here is a screenshot they sent me.

The error message reads

> Could not open 'https://docs.gimp.org/2.10/en/gimp-help.xml' for reading: Operation not supported
> Perhaps you are missing GIO backends and need to install GVFS?

They are not on Kubuntu and I installed their machine personally, so I know there are no oddities. It's just a standard Ubuntu install; they are in their 80's and things can be harder for them to work-around.

My current advice to them was to run the following in terminal.

sudo apt install gimp-help-en gimp-data-extras gvfs-backends

Will that be enough?