Why does opening a pdf sometimes default to gedit with no option of using evince?
When opening a pdf from a Microsoft Help Attribute Definition File source, Firefox defaults to gedit instead of evince in FF 17.0.1, Ubuntu 12.10. This is a regression as previous versions had no such issue.
My preferences are OK; set to evince for pdf and nowhere does gedit appear in preferred application for any file type.
All Replies (6)
Hi!
Have you tried to test in Safe Mode: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode .
In my experience the majority of issues related to PDFs are other plugins taking over and modifying settings even after they were uninstalled. If it works fine in Safe Mode I will recommend using Firefox Reset: Reset Firefox preferences to troubleshoot and fix problems
I hope it helps, Ibai
It seems more complex than just a Firefox issue. I changed the profile to a virgin one and still have the issue.
I have another partition on this laptop that opens evince properly as well as another older laptop using the same profile that also opens evince as the pdf viewer.
I'll move this bug to Ubuntu.
Which which MIME type does the server send this file?
Does the file have a correct .pdf file extension?
If it were that simple, I would have fixed it long ago.
After doing more searching, I'm not alone with this issue and it is likely something deep in the filesystem.
Some are reporting that removing/moving mimeapps.list provides a temporary fix, but it doesn't fix my problem. Saving the file isn't an issue, and opening pdf files from a non Microsoft Help Attribution Definition File source works normally.
defaults.list is showing evince as the application for pdf, as does Nautilus and everything but opening PDF from a Microsoft Attribution Definition File source.
I can open directly pretty much everything else from the web and Thunderbird with evince.
As it isn't an issue with the same FF 17.01 on the same precise but 64 bit version, I copied the mimeapps.list and defaults.list from one to the other but it made no difference.
This two points on this issue can help Ubuntu users. First option, let gedit intent to open the file, then close gedit after the error notification. Then, go to "Places » Recent Documents" and you can open immediately the downloaded pdf file with your system default app. Second approach: Install the add-on "User Agent Switcher", and let Firefox identify itself as «Internet Explorer», then, you can open the pdf file normally with the reader settled in Firefox preferences. This worked for me, conclusions why this is so are left for granted.