Daniel Sonck posted on Wed, 08 Sep 2021 14:26:42 +0200 as excerpted: > For quite some time I have the annoying issue where all HTTP links (from > KDE applications like Kontakt but also non-KDE applications like > IntellIJ) have been opening in Google Chrome. This was set to the > default application at some point, but for quite some time, I used the > System Settings to set the default application web browser to firefox. > > I'm currently wondering what decides under a full KDE environment which > program to open for URLs. Things I've already considered are: > > - Default Applications in System Settings > - File associations > > So currently I'm at a loss why something decides Google Chrome should be > the default, which is annoying since I'm logged in and most of my > history is inside Firefox, and not in Chrome. Besides that Chrome > sometimes has glitchy behavior so I rather avoid using it if I can.
FWIW I've had that problem before as well. It took me awhile to get it all straightened out, but eventually I did. Not sure I can really tell you what I did, but some hints: * Looks like you already set the default app in system settings. Is it staying as you set it or switching? (Here, it stayed as I set it but things were ignoring it.) * Ensure the browsers aren't automatically resetting it for you. Since you want firefox, ensure it's set to always check that it's the default browser. (Settings/preferences > General, Always check if Firefox is your default browser.) And while there, if it's not, hit the make default button as well. While I've never run chrome as it's proprietary, I switched to firefox from chromium, and as I said, had problems too. It's no longer installed so I can't check where its default settings are, but you'll want to ensure that chrome/chromium is set *not* to make itself default. Then quit both and start chrome/chromium, quit it again and start firefox, and ensure firefox still says it's the default. If that's not sticking it's probably the browsers resetting it and if you can't make them stop you may need to get support from them. * Test from krunner (kde/plasma's run dialog) and/or from the search entry in the app launcher (which at least in theory should do exactly the same thing that krunner would do). Try multiple variants: kde.org www.kde.org http://www.kde.org https://kde.org And for good measure try at least two domains as well, say google.com or yahoo.com, in all four variants. The idea is to see if it's different and which ones are wrong. * Similarly, from konsole, run xdg-open (xdg-utils package if it's not installed) with the four variants. That tests the generic defaults. * Check that the individual apps don't have a per-app preferred browser default, or that it's set to the system default (if the option is available) if so. (Note that older apps from before xdg standards may have separate options such as "kde default", "gnome default", etc. They'll also typically have a few presets available, as well as an "other" option that lets you type in your own choice.) * You mentioned checking file associations, but there's a similar protocols setting that AFAIK doesn't really have a GUI -- I /believe/ that's what the default app setting is supposed to affect but obviously it doesn't work in all cases. Hopefully the above hints will be enough and you don't have to go manually messing with the protocol setting, but I had to. Unfortunately, what I did there involved a bit of command line, grepping strings like "chrome" (for me chromium) in files and then manually editing them, basically messing around until it worked, so I can't really give you the best instructions. If you're reasonably comfortable at the commandline you can probably take it from there, but if not... well, let's just hope the above hints work and you don't have to deal with this one. * As an alternate approach to the just above, you can at least narrow down the problem by doing a bisect of the problem space. I've used this technique for other problems, tho I used the grep-and-edit for this one. The idea of a bisect is to incrementally halve the potential problem space multiple times until you narrow things down to a specific file or even line in a file. First make a backup of you home dir in case you fat-finger the moves/ deletes below. The best first step for a bisect of a problem like this is to try a clean user config, either setting up a new user temporarily, or moving your home dir elsewhere and starting with an empty/clean config, to see if the problem still occurs. If it occurs with a clean user config then the problem must be at the system level. If not, then you know the problem's somewhere in your user config. Reset after each step, deleting the newly created dirs and files and moving the old ones back in place. Second step, given that most modern config, including for plasma, is in the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME dir (normally ~/.config), try with your normal home dir but with that directory moved elsewhere. The result will tell you whether the problem is in ~/.config or not. If not, try $XDG_DATA_HOME (~/.local/share by default, IIRC). Then, try with all the files in the dir moved elsewhere but all the subdirs left in place. When you know it's the files (not subdirs) in a dir, try with half the files. Then with a half of the problem half so a quarter, then 1/8... until you get down to a single file. Once you have the file, open it in a text editor and see if it's plain text or not (kde/plasma settings are all plain text, but some other apps may have binary settings files). Assuming it's a plain text ini-style file as most kde settings files are, you have a choice. If it doesn't look like there's too much to lose in it you can just delete it and get defaults again. Or you can continue, bisecting file sections. Once you have the section you can either just wipe the entire section or continue. to bisect individual lines within the section, until you find the specific problem line and thus the individual setting. This is a massive pain, especially the first time, but from experience, I can tell you you learn a *LOT*. After the first 2-3 bisects, you'll have a feel for where things are, and will be able to skip several of the first steps, often picking the file or at least the group of files you think it is and starting from there. * Finally, one last hint. YMMV, but after beginning to deal with the browser thing here, I decided I wanted it to be easier the next time it happened. So I set up a distinctively named script, "wb" (for web but without the e), that launched my browser of choice, and then set everything up to point to that script. So the next time I switch browsers I can simply change the command in the script to point to the new browser. I'll change it in the one place and be done. =:^) (Actually, I have a second one, wbn, that opens the link in a new window instead of a new tab in an existing window, as well. But mostly I just type that one into krunner.) Of course this one's more for people comfortable enough at the commandline to do that sort of thing... -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
