Comment 0 for bug 1854588

Before anyone says this bug already exists... it doesn't (at least as far as I can see). It's just that a lot of similar bugs do/did exist where people have also experienced the same symptoms (of gdebi-gtk vanishing upon clicking 'Install').

So yes this is the same symptoms, but it must be a different cause as the circumstances are different and doesn't have the same resolution.

The meat of it...

Basically on a fresh install of Ubuntu 18.04.3 amd64... with Firefox (or with Chrome if you installed that) go to any site that offers a .deb package and either...
a) choose to open it directly from the browser (rather than saving it to 'Downloads' folder)
b) or... save the file (e.g. to the 'Downloads' folder), BUT!.. open that file from within the browser itself.

You should find that gdebi-gtk appears but vanishes the moment you click 'Install' without a prompt for a password, an explanation or the package actually getting installed.

This bug has existed since the beginning of Ubuntu 18.04 however it's been largely confused with other similar bugs. I've had it on half a dozen machines and confirmed it exists with IRC users on #ubuntu-mate of freenode.

However with *this* bug (compared to others) gdebi-gtk works perfectly fine if you run it from the terminal or just double click the .deb package from your file manager.

It's the kind of bug which if you're a hardened desktop Linux user, you'd just work around it...

But if you're a novice and you can't get a simple thing like Teamviewer installed (which is a .deb, and a thing I might ask someone to do over the phone to try to help them) you likely get fed up and re-install Windows :S

Any input on this would be brilliant as I can't seem to get any logs/output.

~lantizia