[Software] Flatpak/Snap applications open excel files as zip

[ankama]

Hi,
so this is something that has been driving me nuts. In particular because i need to download a bunch of excel files on a regular basis and it's impossible to open them from the download folder. I've tried before to figure out what goes wrong, but I have had no luck so far.

The situation is as follows: I run 25.04.

Whenever I try to open a file from the download menu in Chrome or Firefox, it's opened in Ark as a zip-file. I would like for them to open in libreoffice (obviously).

Thinks I've checked:

• excel files open fine when I open them from Dolphin (so my current work around is, download, open dolphin, go to download folder, double-click)
• other file types do show the kde-file-dialogue and let me choose the appropriate application (or simply open in my preferred application) when opened from inside the snap/flatpack
• mime type seems to be correct:

  file --mime-type test.xlsx
  	test.xlsx: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet​

• I have opened a shell inside a flatpack package and run the same command as above:

  flatpak run --command=sh org.kde.dolphin
  	file --mime-type test.xlsx
  	test.xlsx: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
  	​

• I have opened a shell inside the snap package and tried to run the same command as above but dependencies are missing. xdg-open opens the file in Ark
• I have checked that I have xdg-portal running:
  

  systemctl --user list-units --type=service | grep xdg-desktop-portal
  	 plasma-xdg-desktop-portal-kde.service                                    loaded active running Xdg Desktop Portal For KDE
  	 xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service                                           loaded active running Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation)
  	 xdg-desktop-portal.service                                               loaded active running Portal service
  	​

• - I have checked the xdg-portal logs on start up:

  Okt 15 14:54:46 right systemd[2605]: xdg-desktop-portal.service: Consumed 1.236s CPU time, 81.6M memory peak.
  	Okt 15 14:54:46 right systemd[2605]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service...
  	Okt 15 14:54:46 right xdg-desktop-por[219750]: Choosing gtk.portal for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Lockdown as a last-resort fallback

But I'm not understanding how this all ties together. Apparently the file is correctly identified as libreoffice, at least inside the flatpak, but then something goes wrong during the handover to the 'normal' OS.
If I had to guess, I'd say xdg-desktop-portal didn't install successfully. But I've tried reinstalling it and it made no difference. Is there anything else I could try to get this to work?
Thanks!

[Snowhog]

I can only answer that opening a downloaded .xlsx file in my Kubuntu 25.04 works.

I tried using both Firefox (142.0 (64-bit) Mozilla Firefox Snap for Ubuntu canonical-002 - 1.0, and Firefox Developer Edition (145.0b2 (64-bit) (downloaded/installed from https://www.firefox.com/en-US/channe...top/developer/)

I downloaded a test .xlsx file, went to the Download directory and right-clicked on the file and selected Open with LibreOffice Calc.

The only Snap packages I have installed are: bare core core20 core22 firefox gnome-3-38-2004 gnome-42-2204 gtk-common-themes snapd thundirbird
Flatpak is not installed on my system.

[ankama]

Hi,

going to the download directory (eg in Dolphin) and double-clicking works. What doesn't work is if I click on the file in the Downloads dropdown (ctrl+shift+y) and clicking on a file.

[Princey]

If you open a new tab and type

about : references

and scroll down to applications, do you have any listings for xls and xlsx files? Make sure there's no spacing between about and preferences with the double colon. This BB converts it to a smiley icon so I had to separate them.