evince unable to open external link [SOLVED]

[nichocouk]

Hi there,
I am trying to open http links found in PDF documents displayed by evince, but I can only get an error message saying that evince is "unable to open external link". I am using it under XFCE. Any idea about how I can get it to open my http link with firefox?
For info:

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$ emerge -pv evince
[ebuild   R   ] app-text/evince-2.28.2  USE="dbus doc dvi t1lib tiff -debug -djvu -gnome -gnome-keyring -nautilus" 0 kB

Thanks!

[nichocouk]

In case this helps, I am adding some more info below:

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$ emerge --info
Portage 2.1.8.3 (default/linux/amd64/10.0, gcc-4.4.3, glibc-2.11.2-r0, 2.6.32-tuxonice-r7 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-2.6.32-tuxonice-r7-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_CPU_6600_@_2.40GHz-with-gentoo-2.0.1
Timestamp of tree: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:15:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
app-shells/bash:     4.0_p37
dev-java/java-config: 2.1.11
dev-lang/python:     2.6.5-r2, 3.1.2-r3
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r8
dev-util/cmake:      2.8.1-r2
sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.1
sys-apps/openrc:     0.6.0-r1
sys-apps/sandbox:    2.2
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.65
sys-devel/automake:  1.9.6-r3, 1.10.3, 1.11.1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.20.1-r1
sys-devel/gcc:       4.4.3-r2
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1
sys-devel/libtool:   2.2.6b
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.30-r1
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA AdobeFlash-10.1"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=core2 -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb /var/lib/hsqldb"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-march=core2 -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="assume-digests ccache collision-protect distlocks fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/ http://mirror.qubenet.net/mirror/gentoo/ ftp://mirror.qubenet.net/mirror/gentoo/ http://gentoo.virginmedia.com/ ftp://gentoo.virginmedia.com/sites/gentoo "
LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
LINGUAS="en_GB en fr"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X Xaw3d a52 aac acl acpi alsa amd64 berkdb branding bzip2 cairo caps cddb cdparanoia cli cracklib crypt cups cxx dbus dga directfb doc dri dvd dvdread encode exif fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran ftp gd gdbm gif gimp gmp gnutls gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk hal iconv icu imagemagick ipv6 java java6 jpeg ladspa lame latex lcms libnotify libsamplerate mad mmx mng modules motif mp3 mpeg mplayer mudflap multilib musepack ncurses neXt nis nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl plotutils png ppds pppd python quicktime readline reflection scanner session sndfile speex spell spl sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg symlink sysfs t1lib taglib tcl tcpd tetex theora threads tiff tk truetype unicode usb vim-syntax vorbis wmf x264 xcomposite xft xine xorg xprint xscreensaver xv xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="hda-intel" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CAMERAS="canon" ELIBC="glibc" FOO2ZJS_DEVICES="hp2600n" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en_GB en fr" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="radeonhd vesa radeon" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" 
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY

[lxg]

I also had this once, but my current installation of Evince doesn't show this behaviour.

What happens if you start evince from command line, i.e.

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evince somefile.pdf

Any useful output?

[nichocouk]

Hi,
When I launch evince on the command line, the only output I get is

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** (evince:27990): WARNING **: Failed to create dbus proxy for org.gnome.SettingsDaemon: Could not get owner of name 'org.gnome.SettingsDaemon': no such name

but clicking on an hyperlink does not produce any output on the command line, despite the error message on the GUI.

[lxg]

When searching Google, I see a couple of posts with the same problem as you have. I think the solution is to set a handler for opening URLs using a Gnome tool.

Evince apparently opens URLs using gnome-open, which is part of gnome-base/libgnome. gnome-open uses, as far as I see, the gconf setting /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http, which you would have to modify using gconftool-2, which you will filnd in the gnome-base/gconf package.

The ebuild of evolution proposed the following, which should also work for evince:

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To change the default browser if you are not using GNOME, do:
gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command -t string 'mozilla %s'
gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/command -t string 'mozilla %s'

[nichocouk]

Thanks for your help.
I have tried this method

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$ gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command
/usr/bin/firefox %s

but it does not work.
Could this warning be a clue?

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** (evince:26309): WARNING **: Failed to create dbus proxy for org.gnome.SettingsDaemon: Could not get owner of name 'org.gnome.SettingsDaemon': no such name

[lxg]

Just guessing, but maybe building evince and the gnome-settings stuff with dbus support would help? (Sorry for being vague, I'm not sitting in front of a Gentoo box right now.)

[nichocouk]

I have everything built with dbus support (see posts above with emerge info etc). But I built evince without the gnome USE flag since I don't want gnome (I'm using Xfce).
Cheers

[lxg]

Hm, very strange … what's the output of

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USE="dbus gnome" emerge -pvuND evince

I'll check my D-Bus config later today, maybe I find the section that is mentioned in your error message and can give it to you.

[nichocouk]

I have reinstalled evince with gnome support (no additional dependencies), but no success.

[lxg]

Ok, here's what I found on my machine:

- The “Failed to create dbus proxy for org.gnome.SettingsDaemon” message comes on my machine, too.
- I also have evince compiled without gnome (but with dbus). For testing, I emerged it without dbus, and I stopped the dbus daemon, but it still opens links.
- My Gconf /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command says firefox %s (i.e. without path), but changing it to /usr/bin/firefox %s is no problem; opening links still works.

Does gnome-open work for you? What's the result of the following three commands?

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gnome-open "http://www.example.com"
ps ax | grep gconf
emerge -pv gnome-base/libgnome gnome-base/gconf

[nichocouk]

Hallo,

I don't have gnome-open.

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$ ps ax | grep gconf 
 2721 ?        S      0:00 /usr/libexec/gconfd-2

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$ emerge -pv gnome-base/libgnome gnome-base/gconf

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

emerge: there are no ebuilds built with USE flags to satisfy ">=sys-fs/udev-145[extras]".
!!! One of the following packages is required to complete your request:
- sys-fs/udev-151-r1 (Change USE: +extras)
(dependency required by "gnome-base/gvfs-1.4.3-r1" [ebuild])
(dependency required by "gnome-base/libgnome-2.28.0" [ebuild])
(dependency required by "gnome-base/libgnome" [argument])

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$ USE="extras" emerge -pv gnome-base/libgnome gnome-base/gconf

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild   R   ] gnome-base/gconf-2.28.1  USE="doc -debug -ldap -policykit" 0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/libbonobo-2.24.3  USE="doc -debug" 1,324 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/gnome-mime-data-2.18.0  USE="-debug" 593 kB
[ebuild   R   ] sys-fs/udev-151-r1  USE="devfs-compat extras* old-hd-rules (-selinux) -test" 0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/gnome-keyring-2.28.2  USE="doc pam -debug -test" 2,939 kB
[ebuild  N    ] net-libs/libsoup-gnome-2.28.2  USE="doc -debug" 0 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/gnome-mount-0.8-r1  USE="libnotify -debug -nautilus" 494 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/gnome-vfs-2.24.3-r1  USE="acl doc gnutls hal ipv6 ssl -avahi -debug -fam -kerberos -samba" 1,788 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/gvfs-1.4.3-r1  USE="doc gphoto2 hal http udev -archive -avahi -bash-completion -bluetooth -cdda -fuse -gdu -gnome -gnome-keyring -samba" 1,234 kB
[ebuild  N    ] gnome-base/libgnome-2.28.0  USE="branding doc -debug -esd" 1,777 kB

I'm not really keen on installing all these packages, as the whole point of having Xfce instead of gnome disappears...

Now I suppose I have the equivalent of gnome-open, which is xdg-open (part of x11-misc/xdg-utils).

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$ xdg-settings get default-web-browser
firefox.desktop
$ xdg-settings check default-web-browser firefox.desktop
yes
$ locate firefox.desktop
/usr/share/xfce4/helpers/firefox.desktop
$ cat /usr/share/xfce4/helpers/firefox.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Icon=firefox
Type=X-XFCE-Helper
Name=Mozilla Firefox
Name[en_GB]=Mozilla Firefox
Name[fr]=Mozilla Firefox
StartupNotify=false
X-XFCE-Binaries=firefox;firefox-gtk2;firefox-gtk;mozilla-firefox;
X-XFCE-Category=WebBrowser
X-XFCE-Commands=%B -remote "openURL(about:blank,new-window)";%B;
X-XFCE-CommandsWithParameter=%B -remote "openURL(%s)";%B %s;

Cheers,

[lxg]

I understand perfectly well that you don't want to install these packages … but could you emerge them just for testing and then unmerge all of them again?

As far as I see, I'm quite sure that evince depends on gnome-open for this … however, I don't know how you could replace it.

Maybe a creating a symlink gnome-open could help?

[nichocouk]

OK, I've installed libgnome with USE flags as above. I'm still unable to open an external link, but I now get a slightly different error message: "HTTP Client Error: Forbidden"

I have tried gnome-open:

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$ gnome-open "http://www.example.com" 
Error showing url: HTTP Client Error: Forbidden
$ gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command 
/usr/bin/firefox %s

[lxg]

Can you post a strace? (You might need to temporarily emerge strace.)

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strace gnome-open "http://www.example.com" 

Man, that sure is a weird issue.

[nichocouk]

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I'm away from my computer now so I will not be able to look at this for some time...
I'll keep you posted! Thanks for your help...

[Dr. Strangelove]

Have you tried to enable the curl use flag in poppler?

[nichocouk]

I have enabled curl but to no avail.
I'm dropping it. I don't have more time for testing. Thanks for your help!

[nichocouk]

Now solved with glib 2.28 and the new method for setting default applications for specific URI types. After the upgrade I followed the instructions and edited ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list by adding these lines

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x-scheme-handler/http=exo-web-browser.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/https=exo-web-browser.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/mailto=exo-mail-reader.desktop;