Open a path with Desktop.open() from java on ubuntu (linux)

Question

From my application written in java I want to open a folder, using the operating system file explorer.

I use Desktop.open(new File(path))

This works fine on windows, but on ubuntu 11.10 (linux) it doesn't work. Using the Desktop.open to open a file does work, both on ubuntu and windows.

Using a step in between: File fPath=new File(fPath) and testing it with fPath.exists() and fPath.isDirectory() both gives true.

using the Desktop.open(new File(path)) gives me this exception:

java.io.IOException: Failed to show URI:file:/and/here/the/path/I/use/
at sun.awt.X11.XDesktopPeer.launch(Unknown Source)
at sun.awt.X11.XDesktopPeer.open(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.Desktop.open(Unknown Source)

I was not able to test this on an apple computer yet, but I hoped the Desktop.open(new File(path)) was system independent.....

by the way, the complete code:

    Desktop desktop = null;
    // Before more Desktop API is used, first check
    // whether the API is supported by this particular
    // virtual machine (VM) on this particular host.
    if (!Desktop.isDesktopSupported()) {
        // show Error
        return;
    }
    desktop = Desktop.getDesktop();
    String path = "here the path ";
    // by the way: I use System.getProperty("file.separator") as file seperator
    try {
        File fPath=new File(path);
        if(!fPath.exists()){
            // show Error
            return;

        }
        if(!fPath.isDirectory()){
            // show Error
            return;

        }
        desktop.open(new File(path));
    } catch (IOException e) {
        log.severe(e.getMessage());
        e.printStackTrace();
        // show Error
        return;
    }

Some extra information: OS: Linux (3.0.0-16-generic - amd64)

Java: 1.6.0_30-b12

Java home: /opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_30

Answer 1

I had the same problem. But in my case it was Ubuntu 18.04 and java 1.8.0_161-b12 In Windows 10, everything is working fine. But on Ubuntu

Desktop.getDesktop().open(new file) 

the program stopped responding. I decided to wrap the call in the executor:

private ExecutorService executorService; 
   BasicThreadFactory factory = new BasicThreadFactory.Builder()
            .namingPattern("YourPatternIndeficator")
            .build();
    executorService = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor(factory);
if (Desktop.isDesktopSupported()) {
        File myFile = new File(path);
        executorService.execute(() -> {
            try {
                Desktop.getDesktop().open(myFile);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        });

    }

Answer 2

I was running into what sounds like the same issue on Mint 13. From what I can tell, changes to mime handling for opening directories has broken the java Desktop api. I was able to work around the problem by editing

~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list

and adding this line

x-directory/normal=nautilus.desktop

I'm running Mint 13 Cinnamon with java version "1.7.0_05"