Unable to launch browser from shell - it opens VSCode instead

I have a problem when some shell command is trying to launch my browser. Example below with browse command, but same with jupyter notebook. It looks like the target is opened in VSCode instead.

I'm running Ubuntu 20.04, with zsh, in a pyenv virtual environment.

Thanks!

~ browse askubuntu.com command= "code" args= ("code", "")
~ Copying QUrl("") to QUrl("file:///home/username/.cache/kioexec/krun/8292_0/unnamed") Telling kioexecd to watch path "/home/username/.cache/kioexec/krun/8292_0/unnamed" dest "" All files downloaded, will call slotRunApp shortly EXEC "/snap/bin/code /home/username/.cache/kioexec/krun/8292_0/unnamed" EXEC done

... then VSCode opens the target as a html file.

• EDIT: Same error when I run xdg-open '

• EDIT: xdg-settings get default-web-browser yields code-2.desktop

• EDIT: if I do xdg-settings set default-web-browser firefox.desktop, no error raised but it doesn't actually change the value (stays as code-2.desktop)

• EDIT: $BROWSER askubuntu.com works perfectly fine

• SOLVED: Thanks to @Koen I went to System settings/Applications/Default Applications (I'm on KDE) --> Web Browser --> Open http and https URLs "in the following application: Firefox" instead of "in an application based on the contents of the URL"

2

2 Answers

You forgot the http:// which defines that what you are browsing is a website instead of a file. when you type "browse" alone you get

xdg-open - opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application

Try browse http:/google.com

This should fix the issue.

1

xdg-settings fails silently - an echo $? can show you that return code is not 0 when it failed

return codes:

1 Error in command line syntax.
2 One of the files passed on the command line did not exist.
3 A required tool could not be found.
4 The action failed.

browse is a link to xdg-open - so you need to supply an url to open the default browser

the default browser can also be set via gui tools

• gnome: gnome-control-center - default applications - web
• KDE: System settings/Applications/Default Applications --> Web Browser --> Open http and https URLs "in the following application: Firefox"

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