The -w flag won't open a browser from WSL

[lolmaus]

Describe the bug

I'm running gh in Ubuntu in WSL in Windows 10.

Originally, it was able to open the browser on the host OS, but now it won't.

When I do commands like gh pr create -w or gh repo view -w, it shows no error but the browser won't open a page. I have to scroll the console up, copy the URL from gh output and paste it into the browser's URL bar.

gh version 2.14.4 (2022-08-10)

gh is authenticated.

$BROWSER is empty.

wslview https://github.com/cli/cli does open a page in the broswer in the host OS successfully.

[mislav]

Thanks for reporting and sorry for the nuisance.

If you run the command as GH_DEBUG=1 gh repo view -w, more information should be printed on stderr. Does the command to invoke the browser with get printed?

What if you do GH_BROWSER=wslview gh repo view -w?

[lolmaus]

GH_DEBUG=1 gh repo view -w:

❯ GH_DEBUG=1 gh repo view -w
[git remote -v]
[git -C . config --get-regexp ^remote\..*\.gh-resolved$]
* Request at 2023-01-31 19:29:38.258200684 +0300 MSK m=+0.017526813
* Request to https://api.github.com/graphql
* Request took 470.581539ms
Opening github.com/sibp/sibp in your browser.

Does not open, I have to copy the link manually. The link is not clickable because it misses the protocol.

[lolmaus]

What if you do GH_BROWSER=wslview gh repo view -w?

THis does work!

[lolmaus]

Should I add export GH_BROWSER=wslview to my .bashrc?

[mislav]

Yes, but I'm wondering what gh on your system defaulted to when you did not set GH_BROWSER.

You can also do: gh config set browser wslview, which is about the same as setting GH_BROWSER.

[lolmaus]

It was empty.

[lolmaus]

Thank you, @mislav. 🙇‍♂️

[Jkrox]

I was struggling on why it cannot find wslview, so if somebody has the same error like me, either because it's not installed or whatever, and you have similar WSL config.

❯ wslsys
Release Install Date: Sun Oct  1 22:25:10 -05 2023
Branch: ni_release
Build: 22621
Full Build: 22621.1.amd64fre.ni_release.220506-1250
Display Scaling: 1
Locale (Windows): en_US
Theme (Windows): dark
Uptime (Windows): 6d 1h 39m
Version (WSL): 2
Uptime (WSL): 0d 1h 25m
Release: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
Kernel: Linux 5.15.133.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Packages: 720
IPv4 Address: 172.31.173.166
System Type (Windows): Desktop
SystemD Status: enabled

This was for me the solution:

and also this issue thread #826 might help solving any questions.