KDE applications (and others) opening google-chrome instead of the default firefox

[Daniel Sonck]

On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 5:10:48 AM CEST Duncan wrote:
> 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.)

Yes, it remains set

> * 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.

Firefox believes it's the default (and checks for that on start).

> 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.

Chrome really believes it's not the default (and told it not to check on 
start)

> 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

krunner starts Chrome for each one, also noting that in my version the non 
"http(s)" ones are suggesting "http(s)"

> 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.

xdg-open seems to go to the kde launch thing, considering I see a lot of 
messages related to kio, eventually ending in

    kf.kio.gui: Starting process: ("/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable", "http://
www.kde.org")

All variants are the same

> * 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.)

IntellIJ does seem to have an ability to override the browser (used that to 
force firefox now) but its "System Default" seems to follow whatever KDE wishes 
to start.

> * 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.

Yes commandline would not be much of a problem (working on several servers 
where it would be near impossible (and unwanted) to start a GUI)
Hmm, I could grep for google-chrome-stable which is the one that is started 
(also having chromium)

> * 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).

I could try that as well, if the grep doesn't give any insight

> 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...

Yes the bisect could be useful. I might try that and indeed should give me 
some insight in where stuff is, so I can find it next time.

Thanks for the extensive tips. For now at least I "fixed" it for IntellIJ so 
that removes the major pain point. However, since Kontact/KMail seems to honor 
the KDE preference, any email from work will open up in the browser that 
doesn't have my active sessions (e.g. mentions in internal support issues) so 
that's still annoying to "copy link, paste in firefox". But I'll experiment a 
bit.

Daniel