I’m running Mate 22.04 and finding that Thunderbird (128.5.2esr flatpak - 1.0) is not opening web links. I’ve tried a number of things in config editor but I’ve also had a look at my system Preferred Applications. Under Internet there are three categories, Web Browser, Mail Reader and Instant Messenger. Under Mail Reader it lists Thunderbird but there is nothing listed under Web Browser and Instant Messenger. The drop down arrow on the right for both Web Browser and Instant Messenger is greyed out. (I do not use Instant Messenger so not bothered). On my wifes machine, that is also running Mate 22.04 these drop down arrows are not greyed out.
What web browser(s) do you have installed and how did you install them?
firefox 133.0.3 via flatpak
Do you have a custom .desktop file for Firefox in ~/.local/share/applications?
If so, does it have under the [Desktop Entry] section a line that starts with MimeType= ?
Hmm… I had three .desktop files for ff (previously I had the deb version installed). I’ve deleted two of them and now only have one:
org.mozilla.firefox.desktop
the Exec line for that file is
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=firefox --file-forwarding org.mozilla.firefox @@u %u @@
so it make sense in that I’m current using the flatpak version of ff. Anyway, the MimeType= line looks like:
MimeType=application/json;application/pdf;application/rdf+xml;application/rss+xml;application/x-xpinstall;application/xhtml+xml;application/xml;audio/flac;audio/ogg;audio/webm;image/avif;image/gif;image/jpeg;image/png;image/svg+xml;image/webp;text/html;text/xml;video/ogg;video/webm;x-scheme-handler/chrome;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;x-scheme-handler/mailto;
note: on the previous ubuntu forum site I would have put some of these in quotes so a long list could be scrolled - do you know how to do this on this new site? Thanks.
Do you need a custom .desktop file for Firefox to launch the flatpak the way you want or for a custom “desktop action”? If not, try deleting it (or moving it elsewhere).
Regardless of whether you remove that .desktop file or not, try running in Terminal
cd ~/.local/share/applications
update-desktop-database .
Since I don’t use MATE, not sure whether this will take immediate effect or whether you would need to logout & back in for MATE to register this change.
If that doesn’t work, next things to check would be in ~/.config/mimeapps.list: if that file exists for you, does it contain any entries listing org.mozilla.firefox.desktop in either the [Default Applications] section or the [Removed Associations] section?
You mean what is the equivalent of the old Ubuntu Forums’ [CODE] tags? That would be putting a line of three backticks just before the code and another line of three backticks just after the code, like so:
update-desktop-database
The databases in [/usr/share/mate/applications, /home/dad/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications, /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications, /usr/share/applications] could not be updated```
I do not have a mimeapps.list file in ~/.config. I also had a look in my 24.04 vm and that also does not have a mimeapps.list file. (The 24.04 vm is standatd ubuntu - not the Mate version.Blockquote
dad@dadubuntu:~$ cd ~/.local/share/applications
update-desktop-database
The databases in [/usr/share/mate/applications, /home/dad/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications, /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications, /usr/share/applications] could not be updated.
Blockquote
I had a look in my ubuntu gnome 24.04 vm and there is no mimeapps.lsit file in that vm or my 22.04 Mate desktop.
I’m starting to think, or rather finding out with more research, that my problem could be that I do not have a mimeapps.list file anywhere on my system. Apologies for my last two posts, trying to get use to Discourse. As said (or tried to above), I have no mimeapps.list file on either this 22.04 Mate machine or in a 24.04 ubuntu gnome vm.
Is your Firefox flatpak installed in the system installation or the user installation?
Does the relevant .../flatpak/exports/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache file contain the entries for org.mozilla.firefox.desktop?
To make sure we’re not missing something, what is the output of
env | grep -F XDG_
You could try, instead of MATE settings, create ~/.config/mimeapps.list manually with the following content:
[Default Applications]
x-scheme-handler/http=org.mozilla.firefox.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=org.mozilla.firefox.desktop
* but first: Just noticed that your update-desktop-database commands are missing the . argument which is specifying the path to the specific directory to process. Although I usually do this with a cd followed by update-desktop-database . as shown above, it can also be done as a one-liner:
update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/
That did it - thank you so much, especially today! For anybody who sees this thread in the future I installed, what I would call the standard Ubuntu Mate 22.04 iso, then purged snap and then installed flatpak. (It’s a pity whatever body oversees the structure of ubuntu created the new directory .var under the Home directory when there is a var directory under root. I can see the logic but it also has the capacity to confuse).
So it was @halogen2 That had the Solution, or am I not understanding?
Yes - it was halogen2 with his/her last command in post #10
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