opening a directory using an application change associations incorrectly

thank you for your bug report. are you sure you did assign this software to directories in nautilus?

I don't remember doing such thing but taking a look to any folder properties shows me that gthum is selected as the default application to open it. Changing it back to nautilus fixes the problem.

If I'm the only one seeing this behaviour, I guess I did such change by mistake...

you are not the only one and it's possible some application did this change, you should open a bug against the concerned application if you figure which one

I don't think it's gthumbs fault, as my upgrade to intrepid resulted in the above behaviour with kaffeine.
Little change gthumb and kaffeine both have the same bug.

Similar problem here, after upgrading to intrepid, Amarok took over the folder associations.

changed it back to nautilus in the folder properties box and all is ok.

Simlarly, VLC hijacked my places menu after upgrade to intrepid.

In my case Totem opens Desktop, Home folder or any folder from bookmarks

Right click on folder->Open with app->
Now clicking places->homefolder that previously selected app starts, instead of nautilus.

Simple workaround

Right click -> Open with -> custom command -> nautilus

repeat for all folders

now should open folders from Places in Nautilus

Setting the status of this bug back to confirmed. The problem is that "upgrade-manager -d" unintentionally switched our configurations to launch various programs in-place of nautilus.

 I also do not believe that the package 'gnome-panel' is necessarily at fault, but don't have a clue where the root is.

the issue is a nautilus one and has been sent on http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=553237 now

don't specify the ubuntu version you are using in the title, that creates confusion and extra work for triagers

same here after upgrading. workaround as mentioned above works.

Similar issues:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=553402

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=553688

the bug has been sent upstream and is triaged

EasyTag took its place here. I wonder if there's a better way of changing all these file association instead of clicking on every folder changing it.

similar problem: (as reported in bug #280729).

But in my case no application is linked with a folder, which is correct according to [1], but clicking the "Places/Home Folder" or another directory in gnome-panel doesn't open it.

I don't know what gnome-panel does to execute the launcher, but the default should be to open a folder in nautilus, if nothing else is set -- I guess.

[1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=553237

Additional info;

Before setting folders to open with F-Spot
cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

[Added Associations]
audio/mpeg=rhythmbox.desktop;
video/x-msvideo=smplayer.desktop;
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

[Removed Associations]
inode/directory=mplayer.desktop;smplayer.desktop;

After
cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

[Added Associations]
audio/mpeg=rhythmbox.desktop;
video/x-msvideo=smplayer.desktop;
inode/directory=f-spot-import.desktop;nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

[Removed Associations]
inode/directory=mplayer.desktop;smplayer.desktop;

Removing F-spot from folders properties
cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

[Added Associations]
audio/mpeg=rhythmbox.desktop;
video/x-msvideo=smplayer.desktop;
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

[Removed Associations]
inode/directory=f-spot-import.desktop;mplayer.desktop;smplayer.desktop;

The default application for folders in gnome should be nautilus-folder-handler, as it contains:

MimeType=x-directory/gnome-default-handler;x-directory/normal;inode/directory;application/x-gnome-saved-search;

Experimenting with ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list I get the following result:

[Added Associations]
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

==> I can't open the home folder from gnome-panel

[Added Associations]
inode/directory=nautilus.desktop;

Everything works as expected. So I suspect something is wrong with nautilus-folder-handler.desktop on my intrepid system.

Using strace I found out that there was a local nautilus-folder-handler.conf in ~/.local/share/applications/

(Name and Comment grep-ed away)
--- local 2008-10-09 22:54:31.000000000 +0200
+++ system-wide 2008-10-09 22:49:19.000000000 +0200
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
 [Desktop Entry]
 Encoding=UTF-8
 Exec=nautilus --no-desktop %U
-Hidden=true
+Icon=folder-open
 MimeType=x-directory/gnome-default-handler;x-directory/normal;inode/directory;application/x-gnome-saved-search;
 NoDisplay=true
+OnlyShowIn=GNOME;
 StartupNotify=true
 Terminal=false
 TryExec=nautilus
@@ -11,4 +12,5 @@
 X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
 X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
 X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=nautilus
-X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=2.20.0
+X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=2.24.0
+X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=nautilus

Deleting it solved the problem, as the system wide file seems to work. But this arises two questions:

1. How did this file come to my $HOME?
2. Why didn't it work?

It seems as if this file is from gnome-2.20. Restoring the local version and setting Hidden=false everything works, too - but not using Hidden=true.
Was this attribute ignored before?

the bug has been fixed upstream now

I have the same bug. VLC has "hijacked" my system.

I have a newly upgraded/updated system.

If I remove VLC, then everything is normal. Reinstalling it reproduces the bug.

Same problem here. Upgraded to 8.10 (which so far is great) and Places menu doesn't work. Get error cannot open wxvlc.

addr1972 & Ramptu, Bug is known and already fix committed, there's no need for further
confirmations. But feel free to comment or open a new one on any open bugs you might experience.

I just noticed I didnt have the Private encrypted folder in my Home folder. I fixed the Places menu item by doing the above suggestion by going to properties and choosing open using Open folder instead of VLC.

This bug was fixed in the package nautilus - 1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1

---------------
nautilus (1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low

  * New upstream version:
    - Fix saving of spatial window geometry on close
    - Remove trailing spaces on filenames when copying to FAT file systems
    - Allow emblems that don't start with "emblem-" (lp: #55574)
    - On unmount close tabs that show the unmounted location
    - Fixed redraw issues with labels on zoom
    - Don't toggle sidebar splitter when dragging it
    - Fix bookmark issue that sometimes led to locations not loading
    - Don't show the "cancel" dialog after a timeout when displaying a dialog
      (lp: #238425)
    - Fix crashes and leaks
    - Don't change the default association when using a software which is not
      listed by default (lp: #260492)
  * debian/patches/90_correct_spatial_geometry.patch:
    - the change is in the new version

 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:11:57 +0200

This is not fixed for me, I just had this bug, upgrading to intrepid today.

tonfa@pirzuine:~$ aptitude show nautilus
Package: nautilus
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1

$ cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

[Added Associations]
inode/directory=vlc-usercustom.desktop;nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;
application/x-extension-img=userapp-vlc-WEXVHU.desktop;

And I have some entries about vlc in .local/share/applications.
I remember having already read a folder (containing some .TS from a dvd) by right-clicking and choosing vlc.
If that's the reason the fix isn't working for me, fine (then it shouldn't affect many people). But it still shouldn't behave like that during the upgrade.

Just tested,
changed in folder properties, open with rhythmbox, Places->Homefolder opens rhythmbox

So this should be changed back to "confirmed" Anyone else affected still?

the properties dialog is supposed to change associations if you use it, what should not be changing those is using a software to open something once, not that hardy could have written buggy configurations too

Upgraded from 8.04 to 08.10 yesterday and found this problems. It has been fixed by editing the file local/share/applications/mimeapps.list as described above.

I can confirm that the problem still exists. I upgraded from hardy to intrepid RC1 on Oct 25th, and ever since baobab was started whenever I clicked a location under the Places menu. I resolved this simply by removing the following problematic line in .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list:

[Added Associations]
inode/directory=baobab-usercreated.desktop;

you confirm that the current intrepid creates buggy configuration? are you sure you didn't have that configuration in hardy?

Bug 290028 has a detailed description of the problem, which might be helpful.

I don't know if intrepid *creates* the buggy configuration (because I didn't look in .local/share/applications before upgrading), but I am sure that I didn't have any problem opening a directory in hardy, while trying to open a directory with intrepid (from the "places" menu) didn't work and tried to open it with wxvlc.

So please reopen the bug.

I upgraded to Intrepid during the rc phase to catch this kind of bug, it would be nice if other people do not encounter this bug.

Sebastian:

I went back and looked at a backed up version of

.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

from my hardy installation (i.e. what I had before I upgraded to intrepid RC1). I was surprised to see that my hardy and intrepid mimeapps.list files are identical. So, just to be clear, I had the buggy line

[Added Associations]
inode/directory=baobab-usercreated.desktop;

also in my hardy installation. However, I didn't experience any problems in hardy. Strange... Let me know what I can do to help further.

the nautilus issue is fixed in the current version

could be that gnome-panel was not using gio correctly in hardy (there was some issues which has been fixed this cycle) so it was not respecting the application selected, the current intrepid behaviour is correct and nautilus doesn't write buggy configuration either, not sure what could be changed for users who changed the association by error in hardy though

Please not that while gnome-panel wasn't able to open any directory, the "places" in the sidebar in nautilus was working for me.

In hardy I did a "open with ..." once with a directory, but I never explicitely said to open *every* directory with vlc.

Yes, I am sure. However changing the association has fixed this problem.

To date I have had no further problems

Thanks for your help.

Quoting "Sebastien Bacher" <email address hidden>:

> you confirm that the current intrepid creates buggy configuration? are
> you sure you didn't have that configuration in hardy?
>
> --
> opening a directory using an application change associations incorrectly
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/260492
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>
> Status in Nautilus: Fix Released
> Status in ?nautilus? source package in Ubuntu: Fix Released
>
> Bug description:
> After using 'upgrade-manager -d" to Intrepid, something during the
> upgrade prosses unintentionally hijacked our configurations to
> launch various programs in-place of nautilus for opening folders
> from the places menu.
>
> I do not believe that the package 'gnome-panel' is necessarily at
> fault, but don't have a clue where the root cause is as I don't
> understand how the places menu works, however Tuomas Aavikko's
> workaround gave me success in fixing the issue:
>
> Right click on a folder in nautilus ->Open with app-> File Manager
>
> Now I can open my home folder from the places menu again. So it
> seems that there is a file extension for folders that is being
> hijacked by the installation / upgrade of other packages such as
> VLC, gthumb, totem, amarok, kaffeine, Konqueror, Archiver Manager.
> (compiled from comments and duplicate of this bug.)
>

Perhaps the update-manager should prevent users from running into this problem?

I have see people in here say:

"Right click -> Open with -> custom command -> nautilus"

I need extra detailed clarification. What exactly am I right-clicking on? Places>Home Folder? When I right click on anything in my places menu, the menu just goes away, and sometimes it starts VLC. Off topic: I've noticed several VLC processes (over 10 of them) sleeping in my system monitor with no apparent VLC frontend actually visible. I don't know why this is. Closing the VLC frontends that do appear seem to not kill the backends.

Nevermind. I'm an idiot and got it figured out. You right-click on any folder in nautilus, open with>open folder (instead of VLC). That did it.

The bug I had was in the Nautilus desktop file listing totem as the default program whenever I would "Left" click on any one of the top 7 in the "Places" drop down menu. I found the solution in a forum.

chuck

---------[ Received Mail Content ]----------

 Subject : [Bug 260492] Re: opening a directory using an application change associations incorrectly

 Date : Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:50:57 -0000

 From : diablo75 <email address hidden>

 To : <email address hidden>

I have see people in here say:

"Right click -> Open with -> custom command -> nautilus"

I need extra detailed clarification. What exactly am I right-clicking on? Places>Home Folder? When I right click on anything in my places menu, the menu just goes away, and sometimes it starts VLC. Off topic: I've noticed several VLC processes (over 10 of them) sleeping in my system monitor with no apparent VLC frontend actually visible. I don't know why this is. Closing the VLC frontends that do appear seem to not kill the backends.

--
opening a directory using an application change associations incorrectly
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/260492
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of a duplicate bug.

"A computer expert is someone who knows more about computers than you"

Hey,

I have an up to date Ibex system and this bug is still present, I have tried the "Right click -> Open with -> custom command -> nautilus" fix but no luck.

The places menu just keeps on loading Brassero and trying to burn a disc everytime I click a folder. Any other workarounds known of also people say its fixed in the update but I just updated and still there

ok sorry I got it working now had to remove a line from my .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

thanks!

after upgrade from hardy to intrepid today
with
Package: nautilus
Version: 1:2.24.1-0ubuntu1

All folders in Places are opened in totem. Previous configuration in totem was valid and working fine.

Workaround works

Reopened this against update-manager, as new reports of people who have just upgraded are still coming in. Hopefully update-manager can avoid getting in this situation somehow.

update-manager usually doesn't change the user configuration, anyway not something that will change for intrepid now

What should update-manager do exactly? Doing modification in the users home directory is always risky, I would rather want to add a upgrade note and attach a script to that (like we did for the fusa applet migration).

By the way I don't understand why this isn't a bug in gnome-panel:

- with the same (buggy ?) configuration in .local/share/applications, gnome-panel had no problems in hardy, while it doesn't work in intrepid.
- nautilus in intrepid no problem with the configuration in .local/share/applications, iirc the "places" sidebar was still working fine.

the gnome-panel version in hardy didn't respect the setting, you want to get the bug fixed there so hardy user will get the weird behaviour too?

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 04:24:47PM -0000, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> the gnome-panel version in hardy didn't respect the setting, you want to
> get the bug fixed there so hardy user will get the weird behaviour too?

In intrepid:
$ cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
[Added Associations]
inode/directory=something.desktop;nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

$ cat .local/share/applications/something.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Exec=vlc
Terminal=false
Type=Application

The gnome-panel will launch vlc, while nautilus open "places" correctly
in itself (when clicking in the sidebar). Actually, even if I remove
"nautilus-folder-handler.desktop" from the list, it still works in
nautilus.

So why does nautilus have a different behaviour than gnome-panel ?
Should it follow mimeapps.list ?

Then I think there's a second bug, if there are more than one entry in
mimeapps.list, and the first entry fails to launch, shouldn't it retry
with the second entry, etc. ?

For me the first entry was trying to launch wxvlc, which doesn't exist
anymore in intrepid, shouldn't it try to launch nautilus instead of
throwing an error message ?

regards,

Benoit
--
:wq

nautilus is a filemanager calling an another software to browse directory that would make sense, gnome-panel in not in the same case and respect the association which can be useful if you decide to use something else than nautilus in GNOME

I know update-manager usually doesn't change usersettings, but this case is special in that the resulting behaviour has been changed already by the bugfix in gnome-panel and changing the users setting to make the default nautilus again automatically would result in the old expected behaviour for most people. I.e. it would lead to less percieved changes in usersettings than when doing nothing.

Michael: with upgrade note you mean a message displayed during upgrading? And then a button that when clicked would fix this for the user? That doesn't sound too bad either, although this will be hard to communicate understandably without getting too technical.

Why .exe files are opened in Archive Manager, not in Wine? In Hardy all worked well. Also icon for .exe files not that from icon theme!

Nxx: that sounds unrelated to this bug. This is about the application associated with directories, not other types of files. Please see if another bug report is open about that or report a new one for it.

Similar problem, gnome-terminal hijacked my places menu. When I cleared the .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list, (it only had one association) the problem resolved itself

Just did a network upgrade to the official release of 8.10, and had this problem. Any of the directories from 'Places' opened with Totem. From the desktop nautilus launched as normal. I was then able to change 'Open With...' and luckily changing just one folder fixed them all.

Also, possibly related[?] is that the folder icons used in 'Places' are the default Gnome icons, and do not match my icon theme. Before upgrading they matched, but are now different. All other icons in 'Places' are the same, including 'Home' and 'Desktop'.

I think the right fix for this needs to be implemented in gnome-panel (we discussed that in #ubuntu-desktop).

Here is what needs to be done:
 - have a new key (need_fixup or somthing) defaulting to false
 - a postinst snippet setting it to true for upgrades
 - gnome-panel code which reads this key and call the code when the key is true
 - the code change the default association to nautilus if that's not nautilus yet
 - and after running the key is set to false

Feedback is welcome, I'm not happy that I need to iterate over "g_app_info_get_all_for_type()" but I couldn't find something better.

The next step is a gconf default on upgrade that sets "need_directory_fixup" to "true" on upgrade from the hardy version.

I'm not convinced the patch is correct; you're incorrectly looking for the "nautilus" .desktop file, when we install one specifically for browsing folders (namely nautilus-folder-handler.desktop, which uses the commandline nautilus --no-desktop %U). Ideally we'd just set_as_default_for_type that specific entry, by looking it up by id (the "Name" field of the desktop entry file; "Open Folder").

This also looks a bit bogus to me:
+ g_warning("inode/directory points to '%s' - fixing", g_app_info_get_executable(app), "nautilus");

Hello A.Walton,

thanks a lot for your review of the patch. I will update it to use the id field. I also noticed that my previous patch did not unref the items in the glist, I will fix that too.

I would like to keep the g_warning (make it a g_info maybe) so that it appears in .xsession-errros just in case we need to ask if it was run or not.

oh, yeah, the g_warning() has a incorrect argument, fixing as well :)

This version should be better. I tried to use g_desktop_app_info_new_from_filename() instead of iterating over the inode/directory list. But that made it segfault for some reason.

I experience the same problem after upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10. For me, gnome-panel tried to open the Places folders with QCad. I took the tact of un-installing QCad, but then gnome-panel started trying to open everything with VLC.

I'm surprised that this is a wishlist item but I have found the location of the problem and the fix. For some reason when you continue to use the .local folder from 8.04 it makes the problem happen for 8.10, so if you remove the .local folder completely and then restart, intrepid creates its own .local folder and the problem completely disappears

I had the same issue after a fresh install of Intrepid while re-using my /home

$ cat .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
[Added Associations]
text/html=epiphany.desktop;firefox.desktop;
application/x-executable=userapp-bless-QAFMEU.desktop;
application/x-extension-Ora=gnochm.desktop;
application/x-extension-Orb=gnochm.desktop;
application/x-extension-Pra=gnochm.desktop;
application/octet-stream=gnochm.desktop;
application/x-extension-Hig=gnochm.desktop;
application/vnd.rn-realmedia=realplay.desktop;
text/x-csharp=gedit.desktop;
inode/directory=mplayer.desktop;

So, mplayer was called. When I uninstalled mplayer, it was defaulting back to standard behaviour (nautilus)
issue fixed by editing .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list
and changing :
inode/directory=mplayer.desktop;
to
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

I had the same issue, it fixed it with changing the file association with the folder to the file manager.

Same problem upgraded today.
Old mimeapps.list;
[Added Associations]
audio/mp4=rhythmbox.desktop;
application/x-executable=wine.desktop;file-roller.desktop;
application/pdf=evince.desktop;gimp.desktop;
inode/directory=totem-gstreamer.desktop;totem.desktop;nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;userapp-nautilus-3P71JU.desktop;
video/x-ms-wmv=vlc.desktop;
video/x-msvideo=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-wav=vlc.desktop;

New mimeapps.list;
[Added Associations]
audio/mp4=rhythmbox.desktop;
application/x-executable=wine.desktop;file-roller.desktop;
application/pdf=evince.desktop;gimp.desktop;
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;userapp-nautilus-3P71JU.desktop;
video/x-ms-wmv=vlc.desktop;
video/x-msvideo=vlc.desktop;
audio/x-wav=vlc.desktop;

The inode/directory thing is the bit I changed to fix the problem. Associating the folders with totem doesn't seem something that I would have likely done before upgrading to Ibex.

Got the same problem here, upgraded today (Nov 02), directory was open by mplayer. I thought it was problem with mplayer, I remove Mplayer and directory opened by Movie player. Then I realise it was file association problem as the menu use xdg-open.

In addition to put back the right association, I have to clean up many unrelated program in "open with" as well, for example mp3 file open with text editor etc.

David

Same here.
I've installed Intrepid this moring, fresh install in / mounting my /home partition during the installation process.

My parasitic application was F-Spot:

[Added Associations]
x-content/blank-cd=nautilus-cd-burner.desktop;
x-content/blank-dvd=nautilus-cd-burner.desktop;
application/x-bittorrent=deluge-torrent.desktop;
image/png=eog.desktop;ooo-draw.desktop;inkscape.desktop;
application/x-executable=wine.desktop;nautilus-autorun-software.desktop;
application/octet-stream=gedit.desktop;
application/x-extension-bin=nautilus-autorun-software.desktop;
inode/directory=f-spot-import.desktop;nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;userapp-nautilus-MKNLJU.de
text/x-python=gedit.desktop;

As you can see, the "Open with" workaround didn't work for me because the result was appended and not swapped.

Fixed changing the line to
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

Thanks.

After upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10 my Places->Home Folder was starting mplayer.

I used the workaround:

--- .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list.broken 2008-11-01 23:16:09.000000000 +0100
+++ .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list 2008-11-02 21:04:10.000000000 +0100
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@

 [Added Associations]
-inode/directory=mplayer.desktop;vlc.desktop;
+inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;

Uploaded to intrepid-proposed

Accepted into intrepid-proposed, please test and give feedback here. Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

I'm confirming that the intrepid-proposed version works correctly, I've set eog as the default application to open directories on intrepid, upgraded gnome-panel and restarted the session, nautilus was used by default, the message line was in the .xsession-errors log and eog was still listed as a choice in the context menu which is what expected. Changing the default choice to eog again and restarting the session let eog selected as expected too which means intrepid users can correctly change the setting in intrepid too.

Ok the problem is the file association. Right-click on any arbitrary folder in nautilus, and go to properties > the open with tab. The select "folder".

intrepid-proposed package copied to jaunty.

Saw the same problem here (folders are opened with Totem). Started to happen immediately after upgrading to Intrepid. Yes, I did choose once to open a folder with Totem back then when it was Hardy yet but this didn't change the default: I opened the home folder (and other folders) a zillion times after that and naitilus was started for them, not Totem. What changed the default was the upgrade process.

Copied to intrepid-updates.

I got the same problem with with the Places Menu a fresh installation (from Vista to Ubuntu 8.10).
It didn't appear directly.

After 1 or 2 weeks, just to give me the time to get a little familiar with Linux after years of Microsoft, I decided to download some more applications via the Synoptic Package Manager .

Maybe I made an error by downloading a serie of equivalent applications just to find out which one suited me best.
So I can't know wiche program triggered the bug;

But from than on, the 3 first items of the Places Menu fired the gtkpod program.
I tried to correct the error with the 'Open with' menu.
In place I got the message
 "Could not open the location file:///home/...
 No application is registered as handling the file"

In mimeapps.list if found the line
' inode/directory= '

 Replacement by line
'inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;'
corrected the error.

My story should give the hint that the bug doens't come from Nautilus, but somewhere in the installing procedure of applications

I hit the exact same problem when performing clean 9.10 Karmic install preserving my home directory. I had 7.04, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04 clean installations before with no problems. Double-clicking folders on the desktop would open them implying there was an application registered for folder mime type. The places menu entries however did not work as per this bug report. Had to right-click on a folder, select "open with another program..." and then to pick nautilus as default application to open "this and other files of type "folder" to fix this issue.

I am not sure if the problem occurred right after install or after tracker installation and removal (and then I have manually removed ~/.config/tracker file as well). It may worth to look at tracker app as a potential source of a problem, as it was installed on earlier versions of Ubuntu by default, and is supposed to index files and folders so it could possibly affect mimetype list somehow.

Having said that, I never had a problem like this until upgrading to Karmic.

My two cents here if it d help someone:
This bug was triggered to my system (Jaunty) when i edited the program menu by remmoving some entries. Eg. removing the metacity entries (About 10 of them) which i have i no idea how they appeared in the program menu -unchecked- caused metacity not to run. Similarly removing Dolphin file manager entry (several entries) caused nautilus (the default one) not to open the shortcuts from the places menu.

PLEASE STOP MARKING THIS EFFING BUG AS "FIX RELEASED"! IT IS NOT.

Totally fresh Karmic install -> completely borked after less than a month with this bug.

Rather than mark this as "fix released" maybe a developer could explain the problem in detail to us so that we can fix this as it gets screwed up?

I have to now waste a day reinstalling my O/S.

Totally fresh Karmic install -> completely borked after less than a month with this bug.

Rather than mark this as "fix released" maybe a developer could explain the problem in detail to us so that we can fix this as it gets screwed up?

I have to now waste a day reinstalling my O/S.

It's marked as fixed in Hardy and Intrepid. You're saying it exists in Karmic now too? When you say totally fresh, do you mean you do or don't have updates installed? If it was this bug coming back, it shouldn't take a month either. It should immediately break as soon as you opened a folder in any application other than Nautilus. Do you fit that completely reproducible test case? If not, open a new bug.

It's marked as fixed in Hardy and Intrepid. You're saying it exists
in Karmic now too? When you say totally fresh, do you mean you do or
don't have updates installed? If it was this bug coming back, it
shouldn't take a month either. It should immediately break as soon as
you opened a folder in any application other than Nautilus. Do you
fit that completely reproducible test case? If not, open a new bug.

I can confirm this bug still exists in Lucid (10.04)

The system defaulted to trying to open my Home directory in Movie Player.

Version 10.10 fresh updates as of 2010-7-10 with zero other changes also has this exact bug.
Going into .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list and altering mime-type for inode/directory to nautilus.desktop fixed the problem.
Something is changing or adding that line to that file.

That's .local in your home dir right? Is this also with a fresh home dir?

I thin I've got this too. Opening 'Computer' launches Nautilus but double-clicking any other folder opens Brasero. This appeared after my first (intentional) Brasero project since upgrading to Lucid. Simply no idea what has happened or why. Any help would be appreciated.

I think I've got this too. Opening 'Computer' launches Nautilus but double-clicking any other folder opens Brasero. This appeared after my first (intentional) Brasero project since upgrading to Lucid. Simply no idea what has happened or why. Any help would be appreciated.

I opened Nautilus and right-clicked on an arbitrary folder. Under "Open with Other Application", I chose Nautilus and made sure the "remember this..." check was toggled on. Now, folders open with Nautilus as they should. Let's see how long it lasts...

Hi, I have 10.04 installed for a couple of months now. Recently when I open folders in places menu it open a file in VLC.
in usr/local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache is the only file, no file called mimeapps.list. also if I open places then right click on folder like Home Folder it open up VLC right away. (is there a folder called Nautilus somewhere??? where do you go to make a file open with Nautilus and toggle remember this) My computer abilities are copy and paste. Help much appreciated.

If you hit alt+f2 and type in "nautilus" you can get a Nautilus (file browser)
window open.

Actually, under right-click and "Open with Other Application", it doesn't say "Nautilus" but rather "File browser" (or whatever it's called in your system language). After doing this once and clicking "remember this", my problem is still gone.

the menu under places does not give me a option to open with other application. Only open, open in new tab, open in new window. If I go to places/computer it open in nautilus, and all items in the menu open up correctly. All my folders under these menu's open up correctly. If I right click any of these folders they are to open with file browser. The items menu does not give me this option to change what to open with. Tanks in advance for your help.

Once you have Nautilus open, e.g. by typing nautilus in a terminal, you can navigate to and right-click on any of the objects in your Places menu and choose "other application" etc. This made my folders open with Nautilus again, whether I do it from the Places menu, using GNOME Do, or from within Nautilus itself. If this doesn't work for you, I'm afraid I have no further advice. Anyway, this is just the same workaround mentioned in the original bug posting and I guess this bug is really about the hijacking of the opening application in the first place.

no computer expert, just cut & paste
copy below into terminal
gksudo gedit cat ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list

below list came...

Added Associations]

message/rfc822=gedit.desktop;openoffice.org-writer.desktop;thunderbird.desktop;

application/octet-stream=eog.desktop;

application/vnd.ms-powerpoint=openoffice.org-impress.desktop;openoffice.org-writer.desktop;nautilus-browser.desktop;

application/x-ole-storage=openoffice.org-draw.desktop;

inode/socket=f-spot-view.desktop;

application/x-extension-part=vlc.desktop;

inode/directory=vlc.desktop;nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;transmission.desktop;nautilus-browser.desktop;

application/x-executable=gedit.desktop;

application/x-extension-drive=nautilus-browser.desktop;

application/x-extension-link=nautilus-browser.desktop;

image/png=eog.desktop;f-spot-view.desktop;gimp.desktop;firefox.desktop;nautilus-browser.desktop;

text/x-ldif=gedit.desktop;openoffice.org-writer.desktop;thunderbird.desktop;

after ..
inode/directory=
delete ( vlc.desktop;)
should read..
inode/directory=nautilus-folder-handler.desktop;transmission.desktop;nautilus-browser.desktop;

worked for me!!!!

The probem exists for me in Maverick.

If I have gnome-mplayer installed, *and* I have at least once opened System->Preferences->Preferred Applications (without changing anything there!) "Places" start being opened by mplayer instead of nautilus.

Presumably (?) "Preferred applications" creates ".local/share/applications/mimeapps.list" file, and it has "inode/directory" with "bad" order of entries.

Obvioulsy editing this file and making "nautilus-folder-handler.desktop" the first (or only) entry in this line reverts things to norm, but this should not happen in the first place.

Banshee did this to me in Maverick 10.10 to me. I installed Banshee using software centre and it took over from nautilus. The work around of running nautilus with run Application worked for me.

Installing Banshee using software centre caused banshee to launch as the file manager in Maverick 10.10. The work around of running nautilus with run Application worked for me.

I have just experienced these exact symptoms on my upto date version of Ubuntu 10.10.

Any folder I opened from the "places" would immediately cause the entire contents of that folder to be opened by media player.

I fixed the problem afterwards by editing .local/share/applications/mimeapps.list as someone above recommended.

However it caused further dodgy problems on my system: The "update manager" popped up and thought it was doing a "partial upgrade". Update manager also prompted me to do "sudo apt-get install -f" and "sudo dpkg --configure -a" to clear things up, which worked eventually.

I would recommended that this bug be rated more seriously. It's still present in ubuntu 10.10.

Leading up to my experience of this bug, I had been trying to open a corrupted file in both VLC and Media Player, so maybe that was the cause?

Good luck with fixing it.

An update for the record:

People were still reporting this into 2011, though this was marked fixed. (Except for a wish for upgrades to clean up cruft under ~/)

It was happening to me too, and has now been fixed again: see bug 797000. Permanently, I hope -- it seems we've replayed this problem. 'nautilus-folder-handler.desktop' is installed under /usr, and, with a clean config under .local, you can open folders with other apps, like media players. But the Trash, and places that should be opened with Nautilus, get Nautilus, and not those other apps, anymore. So I think the later comments were valid, and have finally been addressed.

Like I said, hope it stays that way! :)

Oh yeah -- if you do have older .desktop files, created by nautilus, in ~/.local/share/applications, you can still have the Trash opened with the movie player, etc. I had to delete those, specifically an old version of nautilus-folder-handler.desktop.

So the problem with this affecting upgrading users, rather than new installs, remains. That might be a wishlist bug for nautilus itself, for newer versions to clean up those old files. That might be more likely than trying to do it through update-manager.