wslu prevents opening files/directories on desktop, and peripherals on the dock

[Silejonu]

When wslu is installed, the desktop icons (provided by the ding extension) do not open anymore: double-click or right-click->Open do nothing. Other actions (renaming, moving, opening properties…) seem to work correctly.
It also prevents opening peripherals (flash drives, DVD…) from dash-to-dock.

Uninstalling wslu solves the issue.

[Little Girl (littlergirl)]

The same thing happened (is still occasionally happening) to me on Kubuntu 20.04 LTS. I had installed Kubuntu and added a few basic programs from the repositories (no PPAs or anything creative) and the next day when I booted my computer, none of the shortcuts on my panel worked except for the K menu (thank goodness that that still worked). Any shortcut I clicked on didn't open any program, but tried to open something called WSL View (I just got a quick notification in the task manager that said WSL View), which was unfamiliar to me.

A quick Google search turned up several references to Windows Subsystem for Linux, which didn't make sense since this computer doesn't have Windows on it. I assumed that I was having an association issue, so I right-clicked each of the shortcuts and found that all of their "Open With" associations were set for Kate, which is a text editor. This also didn't make any sense, especially since clicking on any of them didn't open them in Kate, but just attempted unsuccessfully to open them in WSL View.

I eventually went into the Muon package manager and did a search for WSL View and didn't turn anything up. One of the related results of that search was wslu, which is listed as a "collection of utilities for the Windows 10 Linux Subsystem" and that showed as being installed. I hadn't installed it, so that also made no sense.

When I uninstalled wslu, all of my shortcuts began working again. Interestingly, as part of uninstalling it, I had gotten a notification that the gimp-help-en file must also be removed and I had happily allowed that. Afterwards, I went into the package manager and looked up the gimp-help-en package and it does not list wslu as a dependency. Also worth noting is that wslu doesn't list gimp-help-en as a dependency.

This problem persists, because I occasionally get a "Language support is incomplete, additional packages are required" notification that expects my password as consent. When I give that consent, it installs the gimp-help-en file, which, in turn, installs the wslu package, causing all of the shortcuts on my panel to immediately be hijacked and non-functional again until I uninstall wslu. This, of course, also uninstalls gimp-help-en and means that I'll be getting that language pop-up again and will either have to intentionally ignore the notification or recover from the installation each time.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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