`gio open` fails to use its own mime config

Question

I'm struggling with gio failing to open an url using default browser under XFCE4 desktop environment. What could be the reason and how to fix it?

gio info http://google.com identifies the link as text/html type:

$ gio info http://google.com
display name: /
display name: /
type: regular
uri: http://google.com
attributes:
  standard::type: 1
  standard::display-name: /
  standard::edit-name: /
  standard::icon: text-html, text-x-generic, text-html-symbolic, text-x-generic-symbolic
  standard::content-type: text/html
  standard::fast-content-type: text/html
  standard::symbolic-icon: text-html-symbolic, text-x-generic-symbolic, text-html, text-x-generic
  id::filesystem: http:uri=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com

gio mime text/html reports the correct default browser for the type:

$ gio mime text/html
Default application for “text/html”: sidekick-browser.desktop
Registered applications:
    sidekick-browser.desktop
    calibre-ebook-edit.desktop
    chromium.desktop
    firefox.desktop
    emacs.desktop
    emacsclient.desktop
    okularApplication_txt.desktop
    org.xfce.mousepad.desktop
    vim.desktop
Recommended applications:
    sidekick-browser.desktop
    calibre-ebook-edit.desktop
    chromium.desktop
    firefox.desktop

But gio open http://google.com opens the link in Chromium, which is not a default browser according to gio info.

At the same time, xdg-open opens the link in Sidekick browser which conforms to settings.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 10 '25 at 23:29

To get a better overview of the call stack you can run:

bash -x xdg-open http://google.com

With this you can pinpoint the actual utility or desktop file that will be used to run your browser.

I am saying this because xdg-open will either pass the URL to another tool or search for a suitable browser binary in desktop entries found in these locations:

$XDG_DATA_HOME:$HOME/.local/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/

Worth to note, that all of this also depends on the desktop environment and the applications available on your system.

This is based on research conducted on a Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS system with xdg-utils 1.1.3-4.1ubuntu3~22.04.1.

`gio open` fails to use its own mime config

1 Answers1