Flatpak/Snap apps open vscode instead of the file manager

[nu111]

Hi,

when I open a directory from a Flatpak app such as DropBox or Cryptomator, or from a snap app like Chromium it opens it in Visual Studio Code instead of Dolphin. This doesn't happen if I open a directory from a non Flatpak/Snap app. Also xdg-open ~ as expected opens Dolphin.

Visual Studio Code is installed with apt, the official way to install it.

OS: Kubuntu 20.04.4
Flatpak: 1.6.5
Snap: 2.56.2

I have been directed here by this comment: flatpak/flatpak#4819 (comment)

[TDuffinNTU]

Easiest workaround for flatpak version of vscode is to run xdg-mime default org.kde.dolphin.desktop inode/desktop in a terminal. No idea why mimeinfo.cache doesn't pick it up properly but 🤷

[hfiguiere]

that's because VSCode seems to want to be the one opening them. I have a similar issue with RawTherapee (a digital camera raw processor) that steal it too.

Also I think the proper MIME type is inode/diretory.

[eingorz]

I have this issue, neither of the commands above fixed it

[RokeJulianLockhart]

microsoft/vscode#114425 (comment)

[killjoy1221]

I'm thinking something somewhere is incorrectly implemented. For me, xdg-open outside Flatpak opens Dolphin. But inside Flatpak, it opens vscode.

Using microsoft/vscode#114425 (comment), I can identify the issue by editing a file on the host system.

All the current system mime associations are located in /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache. Mine has this association for inode/directory:

inode/directory=code.desktop;org.kde.dolphin.desktop;org.kde.gwenview.desktop;org.kde.kate.desktop;

Notice that code.desktop is first, probably because alphabetical order. As it works on the host system, I'll assume there's nothing wrong with the file. However, editing this file so org.kde.dolphin.desktop is first resolves the issue inside Flatpak.

Unfortunately, this file is automatically generated by update-desktop-database, so it isn't usable as a permanent workaround. Although, if you're willing to break any package updates, you could rename the the desktop file to something like vscode.desktop, though I don't know what other side-effects that may have

[smcv]

The MIME type associations in mimeinfo.cache are in an undefined and unspecified order: it is a cache of every application that says it can open inode/directory, with no preference order implied. It is entirely likely that the GIO library used by xdg-desktop-portal, whatever is the equivalent code in the KDE ecosystem, and whatever xdg-open is using (if different) will choose a different arbitrary one from among the apps that claim to be able to open directories.

The solution to that is to use the mimeapps.list mechanisms defined by https://specifications.freedesktop.org/mime-apps-spec/mime-apps-spec-latest.html to set a preferred/default handler for inode/directory from among the ones listed in mimeapps.cache. In practice, nearly everyone will want the preferred handler for inode/directory to be a file manager, but the system has no way to know that Dolphin is a file manager and VSCode isn't. mime-apps-spec is a higher layer than mimeinfo.cache: mimeinfo.cache is mechanism, and mimeapps.list is policy.

Two things are necessary for this to work as intended:

1. If you are using a complete desktop environment like KDE or GNOME, it should be setting XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP to a suitable value in the "activation environment" that xdg-desktop-portal will inherit from systemd --user or dbus-daemon, for example XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=KDE for KDE Plasma, or XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Ubuntu:GNOME for Ubuntu's variant of GNOME. If you are using a desktop environment that you have assembled yourself from individual components, then you might need to do that piece of system-integration work yourself.

2. If you are using a complete desktop environment like KDE or GNOME, then it should also be installing /usr/share/applications/${desktop}-mimeapps.list, where ${desktop} is one of the names in XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP folded to lower-case: for example /usr/share/applications/kde-mimeapps.list would select KDE's Dolphin as preferred, or /usr/share/applications/gnome-mimeapps.list would select GNOME's Nautilus. Again, if you are using a desktop environment that you have assembled yourself from individual components, then you might need to do that piece of system-integration work yourself, either in a package, or in /etc/xdg/${desktop}-mimeapps.list, or per-user in ~/.config/mimeapps.list.

If you are using a complete desktop environment but it is not properly integrated in your distribution, so that one of the integration points I've described is missing, then please report that to your Linux distribution's bug reporting channels.

[TingPing]

I'll close this as nothing is actionable. The comments above discuss how to configure the system.

[nu111]

BTW I still don't understand what causes the misconfiguration and why it seems related to vscode.

[killjoy1221]

It's not specifically something that vscode does, but the name of the .desktop file (not a vscode bug). If you created an app named a.desktop and configured it to open directories, I bet it would use that instead of your default file manager as well.