Salix Forums

I'm looking at a really weird needle in the haystack glitch.

Last year I installed Salix and KDE for a family member. Other than this glitch all is working fine and the user is content. The Salix system is fully updated.

* Login using KDE/X11.
* Launch K3B.
* In the K3B center folder/file pane, right-click on a folder.
* From the popup context menu, select 'Open Containing Folder'.
* K3B launches Thunar rather than Dolphin.

The expected behavior is to launch Dolphin.

I have not found anything awry in ~/.config/mimeapps.list. I tried deleting the file and starting from scratch. Likewise with KDE system settings file associations. Using strace did not reveal anything.

I can't replicate the bug on my Slackware 15.0 system using KDE.

Not all KDE packages are installed. For example, no game packages. A missing package might be the root cause, but I don't have a full install in Slackware and the KDE package lists are almost identical between the two systems.

Notes:

* While Salix is a GTK distro, the user is happy with KDE.
* Xfce is retained as a backup/emergency desktop environment. Using Xfce is not an option.
* Removing the executable bit from /usr/bin/thunar avoids the glitch. Not palatable since Xfce is a backup DE.
* Having an instance of Dolphin already open avoids the glitch.
* Changing the Xfce default file manager to Dolphin does nothing.
* Default applications in KDE are as expected.

I have been using Slackware for many years, but this bug has me stumped. Because I can't replicate this on my Slackware system, I will not be surprised if others can't replicate on Salix. To replicate this bug probably requires users be familiar with KDE. I am open to any needle in the haystack suggestions. Feel free to throw darts.

Thanks.

Edit: Is there a KDE "meta" package in Salix? Since this system is not a full KDE install, a meta package might help disclose the problem. BTW, the original Salix install was a Full install.

Does this help?

https://userbase.kde.org/System_Setting ... cations/en

Does this help?

Thanks for replying. Doesn't help , but I neglected to mention in my original post I had already checked that.

After I finally tripped across appropriate key words for searching, I discovered this quirk is a corner case rabbit hole bug, existing for many years. The problem is caused by a broken org.freedesktop.FileManager1 specification and how that spec is implemented.

The related files are found at /usr/share/dbus-1/services/*.FileManager1.service.

Seems the cause is a sole reliance on these FileManager1.service files rather than cross-checking with mimeapps.list. There is a related Slackware forum thread. I found several other forum discussions and bug reports.

Searching the web indicates several proposed solutions, most of which are sledge hammers. Those proposals do not really help people who have more than one DE installed.

Two solutions that seem palatable are 1) to run dolphin in daemon mode and 2) denying dbus access to those FileManager1.service files. The first solution matches my experience with keeping an instance of dolphin open, but the solution needs to be implemented in KDE only. I haven't yet tested either solution.

I posted here in the Salix forums because I only have seen the bug in Salix and I can't replicate the bug in my Slackware systems. Based on all I have read, I don't know why I don't see the bug in Slackware.

Anyway, often posting a question online tends to help the brain better focus on searching the web. While not a Salix issue at all, I don't think this thread wastes bandwidth and might help others in the future.

Maybe putting a .desktop file that launches a script like the following in your ~/.config/autostart would work then?
Not sure if KDE uses the XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP variable, it probably does, but you could also check for $DESKTOP_SESSION or $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP.

Run from within KDE to find some variables you can use.

Don't forget to make that script executable.

EDIT: even better, I think something like this would work directly: