GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 91362
Visual feedback needed for application launch
Last modified: 2018-05-22 10:51:32 UTC
Package: nautilus Severity: normal Version: 2.0.4 Synopsis: No visible clue for failed application launch Bugzilla-Product: nautilus Bugzilla-Component: general Description: Description of Problem: I tried to run an application from nautilus by double clicking on it and nothing happened. It turns out that the application was missing a library dependency but failed to start. I didn't realize this untill I went to a terminal window and launched the application by hand Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. Find a program fails to launch ( like one that depends on gtk 1.2 and don't have gtk 1.2 installed ) 2. Try to launch the application through nautilus 3. Notice no clue about failure Actual Results: Nothing happens Expected Results: A dialog should appear telling me that the application failed to start and give me some way to find the console output if there is any. How often does this happen? Every time ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2002-08-21 19:20 ------- Reassigning to the default owner of the component, nautilus-maint@bugzilla.gnome.org.
This is fairly easy to duplicate. Here's what I did: 1) ldd `where gnome-terminal` | grep "\(vte\|zvt\)" 2) I got back libvte.so.2, so I ran locate libvte.so.2 3) I saw /usr/lib/libvte.so.2.6.0 (which /usr/lib/libvte.so.2 was a symlink to). So, as root, I ran chmod go-rx /usr/lib/libvte.so.2 4) In nautilus, go to the directory where gnome-terminal is located and double click on it. It silently fails. Trying to run gnome-terminal from a terminal that was already up before the permissions where changed on libvte produces the following error: gnome-terminal: error while loading shared libraries: libvte.so.2: cannot open shared object file: Permission denied I'm using Redhat 8.0, which has nautilus v2.0.6 (I can also duplicate this under Mandrake 9.0 although it's a libzvt that I have to remove permissions from). I disagree with enhancement level of severity, so I'm marking it up. Also, I'm setting GNOMEVER2.0 keyword and marking as new. I think this is probably an easy-fix, so that keyword might be able to be added as well?
This is one of those ones that is borderline enhancement/serious problem. 'major' is certainly reasonable; leaving it that way.
This bug seems to be still valid in nautilus 2.2.2. I am changing the GNOMEVER keyword to "GNOMEVER2.2".
still an issue with nautilus 2.9.2
*** Bug 312444 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 477898 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Looks like Bug 578943 is a dup of this.
*** Bug 578943 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
From doc of g_app_info_launch_uris () [1] that nautilus is using to start applications: "Note that even if the launch is successful the application launched can fail to start if it runs into problems during startup. There is no way to detect this. " Cosimoc, should we still see this as a nautilus bug? Also, doesn't nautilus handles the control of the started application to gnome-session so even if nautilus would die, the started applications aren't killed? If so I'll suggest that gnome-session should handle all types of application failures as well. [1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/gio/stable/GAppInfo.html#g-app-info-launch-uris
*** Bug 590292 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 660577 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
A variant of this issue is frequently experienced by users of Tails (https://tails.boum.org/). When a user clicks on a desktop launcher, it might take several seconds until the application is actually open (let's say Tor Browser). During these few seconds there is no visual feedback whatsoever that the desktop launcher was actually clicked. https://tails.boum.org/install/inc/screenshots/desktop.png Unexperienced users, like journalists using Tails only from time to time, often click again several times on the desktop launcher after nothing happens the first time leading to several instances of Tor Browser being launched. Bug #477898 has been marked as a duplicate of this one while I think they are orthogonal: - #477898 is about providing immediate visual feedback even when everything goes well (for example changing the cursor into a spinner), which is the problem we have in Tails. - While #91362 is about being more helpful when something goes wrong (for example providing an error message if the launch fails). There is no visual feedback when clicking on desktop launchers but also when starting an application from the Applications menu or from the activities overview. So I think that this bug is not specific to Nautilus and should maybe reported to another component. I looked for a similar bug on GNOME Shell but couldn't find any. Should I report it there as well? Should we reassign this bug to GNOME Shell? I'm too new to bugzilla to be sure about what to do :)
While doing some user testing for Tails this week, I repeatedly saw people hitting this bug (4 participants out of 5). 3 of them had GNOME on their regular operating system. My conclusion is that this issue does not only affect people who are new to GNOME but long-term users as well.
This is something interesting and that we probably want, but this is up to the window manager. See Endless OS for an implementation of it.
in case is wanted, it must be filed against mutter or gnome-shell in GitLab. Closing here.
Thanks for the guidance Carlos! See you on https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/issues/166.