Re: bug#44824: 27.1; Org export as pdf and open file does not open it

[<tomas@tuxteam.de>]

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On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 06:39:40PM +1100, Tim Cross wrote:
> 
> Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> 
> > Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> >
> >>> This doesn't work:
> >>> M-x shell RET xdg-open /tmp/test.pdf RET
> >>
> >> How about asking the xdg-open developers to help us figure out the
> >> reason?  Or, failing that, debug xdg-open in the problematic
> >> situations to find out what fails there and why?  E.g., could it be
> >> that it fails because stdin/stdout is a PTY? what happens if you bind
> >> process-connection-type to nil when starting the async subprocess?
> >
> > I'm unable to reproduce the problem at all -- all the various ways of
> > calling xdg-open work fine for me (on this Debian bullseye laptop w/
> > Gnome Shell).
> 
> For me, I get
> 
> M-! xdg-open /tmp/test.pdf works
> M-x shell <ret> xdg-open /tmp/test.pdf works
> M-& xdg-open /tmp/test.pdf fails
> M-x eshell <ret> xdg-open /tmp/test.pdf fails
> 
> The two which fail do not report any error - just now pdf viewer open.
> 
> I also have no problems with org export menu when I choose export to pdf
> and open.
> 
> This was on a Ubuntu 20.10, latest Emacs 27 (27.5.91), mate DE and
> default shell zsh.

This chaotic behaviour gives me the impression that it's an environment
thing: desktop environments have the tendency to prime the environment
variables in "creative" ways, often different from what a login shell
would do.

One var to look for would be, of course, PATH, but I don't know what
other environment variables `xdg-open' looks at; perhaps USER, HOME
are relevant, perhaps more.

May be comparing what `env' says under those different invocations
could shed some light.

Cheers
 - t

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