ltsp-localapps can not open files with accents in URI

[Tom]

If I try to open a file in a localapp, and the filename (or path) contains accented letters, the URI is not passed correctly to that local app.

For example if I run:
ltsp-localapps vlc /home/user/testé/video.mov

Then on the client, in syslog, i see:
ltsp-localappsd: Executing command as username user: vlc "/home/user/test303251/video.mov"

And vlc gives an error saying that this URI is not valid.

The problem seems to be located in the way this filename is passed:
# xprop is used to set the X property LTSP_COMMAND:
xprop -root -f LTSP_COMMAND 8s -set LTSP_COMMAND "/usr/bin/vlc --started-from-file %U"

which is read by the daemon /usr/bin/ltsp-localappsd

# Poll for LTSP_COMMAND changes and execute
xprop -notype -root -spy LTSP_COMMAND | while read junk_x junk_y LTSP_COMMAND ; do
  # Strip off leading and trailing double-quotes.
    LTSP_COMMAND=${LTSP_COMMAND%\"}
    LTSP_COMMAND=${LTSP_COMMAND#\"}

[Tom (x-tom-5)]

Changing "8s" to "8u" fixes this:

xprop -root -f LTSP_COMMAND 8u -set LTSP_COMMAND "/usr/bin/vlc --started-from-file %U"

[Tom (x-tom-5)]

This is the patch for
/usr/bin/ltsp-localapps

[Tom (x-tom-5)]

And this is the second patch, for
/opt/ltsp/i386/usr/bin/ltsp-genmenu

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

Thank you Tom, fix committed in http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ltsp-upstream/ltsp/ltsp-trunk/revision/2643

Btw, even 8u won't work if one has LANG=C, the locale needs to be unicode-enabled, so at least LANG=C.UTF-8 or LANG=en_US.UTF-8 etc.

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

There's a problem in Ubuntu Precise which has x11-utils 7.6+4ubuntu0.1, `xprop 8u` doesn't work there and `xprop 8s` is needed instead.

That was a bug in xprop which was solved later on:
https://sources.debian.net/src/x11-utils/7.7%2B3/xprop/ChangeLog/
commit 0d069c0edae83f70ac10fab1a3c04d8197e277c4
Date: Tue Jan 10 23:39:04 2012 -0500
    Enable setting property of type UTF8_STRING.
    Fix "bad format character: u" error for format '8u', e.g.:
        xprop -root -f _NET_WM_NAME 8u -set _NET_WM_NAME LG3D

LTSP users that have applied the patch mentioned in this bug report, and are using Ubuntu Precise, should try to SRU the aforementioned xprop fix,

or, as a quick workaround, they could put this in lts.conf:
INIT_COMMAND_01="sed 's/8u/8s/' -i /usr/bin/ltsp-localapps -i /usr/bin/ltsp-remoteapps -i /usr/bin/ltsp-localappsd -i /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp-remoteappsd"

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

I filed an SRU for x11-utils, it should be published soon in precise-updates:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/x11-utils/+bug/1463663

[Alkis Georgopoulos (alkisg)]

Fix released in LTSP 5.5.5.