Sailfish insists to open new netlinks with Fernschreiber 4.2.0.19/XA2

lumen · 7 September 2021 12:22

REPRODUCIBILITY (% or how often): every time
BUILD ID = OS VERSION (Settings > About product): 4.2.0.19
HARDWARE (XA2, X10, X10 II, …): XA2
UI LANGUAGE: Swedish
REGRESSION: (compared to previous public release: Yes, No, ?): did not happen with 4.1.0.24

DESCRIPTION:

When opening a link from email app or Discourser, the SFOS directs the link to Fernschreiber (Telegram app). And when Fernschreiber opens as active app, there is no turning back. I cannot close the Fernschreiber, I cannot swipe it away from either side, I cannot access app drawer from down below. Only thing to escape the “Fernschreiber-loop” is to shutdown the whole telephone.

PRECONDITIONS:

Factory reset XA2 updated to 4.2.0.19, clean install, no patches whatsoever.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

Open email app and click to open a link in an email or open a link from Jolla forums in Discourser app.

EXPECTED RESULT:

Link opens in jolla browser or I get a selection window to choose an app to open with.

ACTUAL RESULT:

Fernschreiber opens but cannot handle the link of course.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

(Please ALWAYS attach relevant data such as logs, screenshots, etc…)

thigg · 7 September 2021 12:39

when I open a link it does not offer the browser but only fernschreiber and another app.

mime type for http seems broken

kraemera · 7 September 2021 12:58

You switch this behavior off in the Fernschreiber settings. Just disable Settings->“Integration in Open-with-menu”.

thigg · 7 September 2021 13:39

this removes fernschreiber, but now it opens links in microtube directly. I’d rather have the selection menu but open a random app automatically.

(its not a problem with fernschreiber)

enrish · 7 September 2021 13:50

I can confirm that after updating to Verla also on my xa2 the browser disappeared from the list, now only Microtube and Fernschreiber appear…

nephros · 7 September 2021 14:01

Take a look at the file ~/.local/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

At least one section should read something like this:

[MIME Cache]
text/html=open-url.desktop;harbour-webpirate-open-url.desktop;harbour-webcat-open-url.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/http=open-url.desktop;youtube-dl-open-url.desktop;harbour-fernschreiber-open-url.desktop;harbour-webpirate-open-url.desktop;harbour-webcat-open-url.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/https=open-url.desktop;youtube-dl-open-url.desktop;harbour-fernschreiber-open-url.desktop;harbour-webpirate-open-url.desktop;harbour-webcat-open-url.desktop;

I find it useful to order the items so that the entry open-url.desktop (which is the default browser) is listed first, and all the others after that.
This determines the order of items in the open-with selection dialog.

You can also just delete that file, which should bring back all the default associations.

carmenfdezb · 7 September 2021 15:46

Yep, I can confirm it too. I have two phones with sailfishos and both have the same issue since I’ve update to SailfishOS 4.2: open-url.desktop is missing from $HOME/.local/share/applications and for that reason open url with sailfish browser is not possible.

thigg · 7 September 2021 16:48

same issue here. edited the cache, but at least without restart its not working

David · 7 September 2021 20:58

Under 4.1, there was no browser reference in mime-info.cache. I have a file called open-url.desktop in the same folder:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Browser
NoDisplay=true
X-MeeGo-Logical-Id=sailfish-browser-ap-name
X-MeeGo-Translation-Catalog=sailfish-browser
MimeType=text/html;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
X-Maemo-Service=org.sailfishos.browser.ui
X-Maemo-Object-Path=/ui
X-Maemo-Method=org.sailfishos.browser.ui.openUrl

lumen · 8 September 2021 13:05

Thanks everybody for your replies! Now it’s Jolla’s turn to find out how to fix this
I noticed now that also clicking the “Foreca” text (in Events view) to open weather details, the link goes to Fernschreiber…and of course the same thing from the Jolla weather app…“more details” link.

enrish · 8 September 2021 19:33

thanks for letting me know, so I guess there’s nothing to do ATM… (other than copying/pasting links manually… specially painful when you get links in sms where you can only copy the whole message)

carmenfdezb · 9 September 2021 11:18

You can fix it if you copy open-url.desktop to /home/[nemo or defaultuser]/.local/share/applications and run next command from Terminal (you must enable ‘Developer mode’ from Settings->Developer Tools to install Terminal):

update-desktop-database $HOME/.local/share/applications/

You can create open-url.desktop yourself with a text editor:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Browser
Icon=icon-launcher-browser
NoDisplay=true
X-MeeGo-Logical-Id=sailfish-browser-ap-name
X-MeeGo-Translation-Catalog=sailfish-browser
MimeType=text/html;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;
X-Maemo-Service=org.sailfishos.browser.ui
X-Maemo-Object-Path=/ui
X-Maemo-Method=org.sailfishos.browser.ui.openUrl

Anyway I think this is a bug and I hope that Jolla fix it

enrish · 10 September 2021 19:08

Now that worked, everything is back to normal, thank you so much!
For the record, my open-url.desktop file had disappeared altogether

edit - the solution worked only temporarily on my device

attah · 10 September 2021 19:23

AFAIK that was intentional with the latest update (only having .desktop files in /usr/share/applications).
However, some cheeky apps that drop their own http handlers in .local will then bork the system even more than usual.

carmenfdezb · 10 September 2021 20:03

What is the best way to solve this issue? I can’t open an url since open-url.desktop is missing.

attah · 10 September 2021 20:18

Not sure… I have steered clear of these apps for this very reason.
On closer inspection, it does seem like i did actually have open-url.desktop in the .local (but it was the only file there).

So i tried removing it, and doing
update-desktop-database $HOME/.local/share/applications/
and
devel-su update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications/

Opening http(s) links still works fine for me, even after a reboot.

/usr/share/applications/sailfish-browser.desktop declares that it handles the relevant MimeTypes.

But do take this as what it is, a “works for me”.

carmenfdezb · 10 September 2021 20:35

I did some testing this week with the same conclusion: if open-url.desktop isn’t in .local, I can’t open url, devel-su update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications/ didn’t work for me.

Others apps have open.desktop files in .local too, like fernschreiber, webcat or microtube, maybe this is the reason why it doesn’t work for me.

attah · 10 September 2021 20:37

.local has priority over the global one, so i’d say yes.

enrish · 10 September 2021 22:49

Well, I lack the knolwdge to join the discussion here, I can just report what happens in my phone: after creating my new open-url.desktop and doing

update-desktop-database $HOME/.local/share/applications/

the browser appeared again in the selection menu. Unfortunately it disappeared after a short time -without rebooting- along with the newly created open-url.desktop file…

I performed every step again and this time around also did

devel-su update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications/

So far so good, it also survived a reboot.
So thank you all for the solution.

My ~/.local/share/applications/
also have files from:

harbour-fernschreiber-open-url.desktop
harbour-webpirate-open-url.desktop
microtube-url.desktop

Two of them are popular apps that are veeery hard to stay away from.

Should we poke individual devs?
Or is there a way for sailors to handle these changes smoothly?

lumen · 11 September 2021 09:52

Noticed just that the Whatsapp opened a link in the Jolla browser. So, it seems to work ok from Android side.