[Trisquel-users] A pesky send-message window pops up whenever I try to open an instance of File Manager

[a***@amenex.com]

One of the email accounts in my newly migrated Icedove has gone rogue,
opening a
message-composing window whenever I click on a file with file manager.

It's just one of my accounts - with the correct name, title etc., but if I
wanted
to send a message, I would use webmail on the appropriate domain's server,

How do I quiet this feature ?

Thanks,
George Langford

[l***@dcc.ufmg.br]

Could you better explain the problem please? It looks like a bad
configuration of the file manager (Trisquel 8's default?).

[a***@amenex.com]

Whenever I try to open a folder (right- or left-click) that pesky Icedove
send mail window
appears, trying to send that folder as an attachment. That's before I have
even started Icedove.

I installed a different file manager (PCManFM) and uninstalled the former
File Manager
(xfce.org) but that had no effect.

This instance of flidas is in the USB-connected 1TB HDD, and that is the one
with which
I had trouble migrating Icedove's profile (since successfully completed).
While that
effort was in progress I was experiencing the send-mail window popping up
whenever I was
trying to start Icedove, but I thought it was some application trying to sign
me up to
send & receive emails ... kinda like Windows of yore, getting set to call the
mother ship.

Alongside this annoyance, the "new" T420's Win10 installation will _not_ be
turned off;
it so persistently comes back on that I have to unplug it and remove the
battery. That
will be rectified by returning the T420 to the store, probably to get another
T420 with
a blank, unformatted HDD.

Probably the pesky "send Home to the mother ship" problem is best addressed
by uninstalling
Icedove and reinstalling it ... ?

In the interim I am using the terminal to manage my files.

Thanks,
George Langford

[a***@amenex.com]

Update: I returned the Win-10 T420 for credit and set about solving the
pop-up email
problem.

Here's what didn't work: Move the profiles.ini file and gibberish.default
folder to
a safe place (to a folder I called IceDoveFiles in another HDD inside the
"old" T420)
with terminal's mv command, using two open terminal windows side-by-side to
reduce
the chance of sending something to oblivion. Uninstall icedove; restart the
'puter;
reinstall icedove. Alas, as soon as I try to open a folder with trisquel's
file
manager, that pesky window pops up again. As an interesting aside, that
caused another
profiles.ini file to appear in .icedove before I has a chance to move the
correct
profiles.ini file back where it belongs; I renamed the intervening
profiles.ini file
to avoid any conflict.

Here's my workaround: The pesky email window does _not_ appear with the
alternative
file manager, PCManFM, so I have a working file manager.

Thoughts on cleansing trisquel's default file manager ?

Thanks
George Langford

[a***@amenex.com]

Something like this has happened before:
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/home-folder-places-points-disk-usage-analyzer
but it went unresolved ...

I was poking around in ~/.config/dconf/user where it seems rather corrupted,
but in my other installations of Trisquel (both TQ7 and TQ8) "user" is
similar.

Then I went to ~/.config/plank/dock1/launchers and /usr/share/applications/
were I am confronted with vast arrays of configuration files.

One such file is /usr/share/applications/pcmanfm.desktop.
Others are ~/.config/libfm/libfm.conf and ~/.config/pcmanfm/pcmanfm.conf.

The following seems like good places to look:

~/.config/libfm$ cat libfm.conf (which might be what invokes "send folder as
attachment"):

# Configuration file for the libfm version 1.2.4.
# Autogenerated file, don't edit, your changes will be overwritten.

[config]
single_click=0
use_trash=1
confirm_del=1
confirm_trash=1
advanced_mode=0
si_unit=0
force_startup_notify=1
backup_as_hidden=1
no_usb_trash=1
no_child_non_expandable=0
show_full_names=0
only_user_templates=0
template_run_app=0
template_type_once=0
auto_selection_delay=600
drop_default_action=auto
defer_content_test=0
quick_exec=0
show_internal_volumes=0
terminal=x-terminal-emulator %s
thumbnail_local=1
thumbnail_max=2048
smart_desktop_autodrop=1

[ui]
big_icon_size=48
small_icon_size=24
pane_icon_size=24
thumbnail_size=128
show_thumbnail=1
shadow_hidden=0

[places]
places_home=1
places_desktop=1
places_root=0
places_computer=0
places_trash=1
places_applications=1
places_network=0
places_unmounted=1

The corresponding configuration file for pcmanfm (which behaves properly when
I click
on the Home folder) is:

~/.config/pcmanfm/default$ cat pcmanfm.conf
[config]
bm_open_method=0

[volume]
mount_on_startup=1
mount_removable=1
autorun=1

[ui]
always_show_tabs=0
max_tab_chars=32
win_width=640
win_height=480
splitter_pos=150
media_in_new_tab=0
desktop_folder_new_win=0
change_tab_on_drop=1
close_on_unmount=1
focus_previous=0
side_pane_mode=places
view_mode=icon
show_hidden=1
sort=name;ascending;
toolbar=newtab;navigation;home;
show_statusbar=1
pathbar_mode_buttons=0

Is there another file manager that I should be looking for ?

Thanks,
George Langford

[e***@riseup.net]

XFE, X File Explorer, has no dependencies with Gnome. I've been using it a
lot in BSD.

http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/

[a***@amenex.com]

loldier suggested another file manager, xfe.

My observation: XFE is free of the present libfm "feature."

My other instances of TQ8 are also free of the libfm Home-click sendmail bug.

It's just the one exposed to Win10 during operation of the "new" T420.

Thanks,
George Langford

[e***@riseup.net]

Please note that I'm not "suggesting" anything, nor do I think it will be of
use in your issue. Basically, I think you've broken your system. Only a
complete reinstall will do th job.

It's just a friendly reminder that there's a nice little file manager out
there, now that you asked.

[l***@dcc.ufmg.br]

I still think it is a personal configuration issue. If so, renaming
~/.config (e.g., using 'mv ~/.config ~/config.bak') may solve the problem.
Then, files in the renamed folder (~/config.bak in my example) can be moved
back into ~/.config (and if the problem occurs again, you have spotted the
source of it).

[a***@amenex.com]

Here's what's happening:

When I go to the menu item "Places" and select "Home Folder" from the file
menu,
after a delay of several seconds a new window appears. It's got "Write" in
the
title line, my file:///home/username/ folder as a file attachment, and my
email
and username from a legitimate (but inactive) email account that's in my
Icedove page.

That delay of several seconds is the time it takes to load Icedove.

I've never used the sendmail and address book features of Icedove, so the new
sendmail page is expecting me to supply the appropriate mail-handling
servers.

What I really want, of course, is to see what's in my file:///home/username/
folder, and not to send the entire contents of file:///home/username/ to
anyone. Fortunately, XFE and PCmanFM both behave correctly.

By the way, the same pesky popup appears for just about any other entry in
the
Places menu, such as Desktop or Recent Documents ...

In the other thread, that same originating action brought up an instance of
the
disk usage analyzer. They couldn't figure it our either.

Thanks,
George Langford

[a***@amenex.com]

Two attempts to eliminate the pesky sendmail popup weren't effective.

(1) A new username & login eliminates the pesky popup, but it also eliminates
access to all my files.

(2) I used "sudo mv libfm libfm-save" to hide the libfm folder. No effect.

Other candidates for exclusion from ~/.config:

caja, gtk-3.0, menus, tilda, caja-actions, ibus, mimeapps.list,
Trolltech.conf,
classicmenu-indicator, leafpad, pcmanfm, update-notifier, dconf, libfm-save,
plank,
user-dirs.dirs, folder-color, libreoffice, pulse, user-dirs.locale, gtk-2.0,
mate-session synapse, xfe

Might one of these other configuration files be the culprit ?

Thanks,
George Langford

[a***@amenex.com]

As often happens, Magic Banana's constructive suggestion solved the
Pesky-Popup
problem. I went to my .config file: cd /home/username/.config, then listed
its
contents. Next, I plodded through the list of files and directories, each
time
entering sudo mv filename filename.bak, followed by clicking on either my
Home
folder or my Desktop folder. Unsuccessful, I'd change each one back again
before
going on to the next one.

Halfway through the file listing, sudo mv mimeapps.list mimeapps.list.bak was
the key: No more sendmail popup ! I was shocked to see the contents of the
chosen
folder instead, for the first time in a couple of weeks ...

cat mimeapps.list
[Default Applications]
# inode/directory=icedove.desktop
# text/plain=abrowser.desktop
[Added Associations]
# inode/directory=icedove.desktop;
# text/plain=abrowser.desktop;

Now I can view the contents of those folders as well as many others without
any roundabout workarounds.

It remains a mystery why one or more of these lines was invoking those
popups.

I'll uncomment them one at a time and report back; of course, it could be a
combination ... which would take a little longer.

Thanks,
George Langford

[l***@dcc.ufmg.br]

Renaming .config and then moving back its files to the new .config (as I
proposed) would have been simpler. You would have directly gotten a
normally-working file manager and could have then easily moved the files half
by half, a binary search of the culprit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_algorithm

[a***@amenex.com]

What I did was extremely simple to do ... and I found the offending setting
on the first try.
Nevertheless, I checked that none of the others contributed in any way ...
all in less than
half an hour.

I've used the binary search on my 300kB .htaccess file; that's where it was
appropriate.

All the best,
George Langford