Problems with Okular + Gwenview

Ask Fedora
1

I’m having problems accessing files from my NAS drive; For instance if I select a pdf file via Dolphin, Okular (being default) refuses to open it, informing me that the file does not exist. However, if I select to open it with Adobe Reader it opens just fine.
If I open Okular and search for the same pdf file it takes around a minute to find the NAS drive, but once located, it works just fine.
I get the same problem with Gwenview when trying to open a jpg file, but if I use Shotwell it opens the fine ok.
I have no problem accessing local files with this desktop, its only my nas. I have a spare machine running Fedora 41 (Budgie) which has no issues and my two Windows pc’s have no problem accessing.

Has anyone had a similar problem, and if so, how do I rectify this?

For info…
My desktop is AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB Ram, on a MSI B450 board – Fedora 41 Kinoite KDE v6.3.2, Wayland
My NAS is OpenMediaVault consisting of 4 x 4TB HDD’s in Raid with 2 x 2TB single HDD’s if it makes any difference.

2

Sounds like a flatpak issue. Normally Okular should spawn a “portal” which is a filepicker that has access to all files, and is able to give the flatpak temporary access to whatever files you choose, even if they dont have permanent access to it.

flatpak info org.kde.okular please

Adobe reader?? Afaik that is a very outdated version. It has no portal support whatsoever, so the app just has permissions to access all files all the time, which is pretty insecure.

I recommend to remove the adobe program and we can continue finding the issue.

The adobe program came from flathub, how did you install okular? Or was it already installed?

3

Hi boredsquirrel,

Thanks for the info. Ocular was installed as default when I installed Kinoite for the first time last week. It only noticed the issue this morning, so I assume it may have been due to a update as it was perfectly ok yesterday. I deleted Okular (24.12.2) and re-installed using the Discover tab on the taskbar, but its no different. Previously I was trying KDE Plasma and all was ok except that things went sluggish, hence the change.
In-between receiving your email and this reply, I thought I’d reinstall Dolphin via the Discover Tab, and it rendered logging onto my NAS impossible due to no password provision. But un-installing it it seems that the original Dolphin is back ??? Although I’m grateful its back, I must say its very confusing.
Dolphin is really the big sway towards my setup mainly because of the split screen ability.

I have removed Adobe on your reccomendation as security is really important

Thanks,

Allan

4

Sorry you need to read a bit about how things work.

Many preinstalled apps are flatpak apps, but preinstalling them makes it a bit more confusing.

Dolphin, the filemanager, is not a flatpak and thus has full access over everything.

Many other apps are flatpaks, but they are not official ones but fedora packages, which is very confusing.

In Discover, you have settings where you can enable flathub, the main source where you get apps that are not part of the system and dont need to be. But you cannot remove repositories.

So open the terminal “Konsole” and remove the fedora flatpak repository. This will remove all preinstalled apps, you will reinstall them from the official sources in the next step.

flatpak remote-delete fedora

flatpak install flathub -y okular gwenview tokodon haruna arianna kasts kcalc itinerary

You have installed flatpak apps from the other repo “flathub” which is the official one. It is really annyoing to have this confusion.

In flathub flatpak okular, the portal should work normally.

And no, dont install stuff that is already installed as flatpaks. Some KDE apps are native apps as they need those privileges:

dolphin, kwrite, kde-partitionmanager, systemsettings, spectacle, filelight, ark and some more

If you want more recommendations on apps

There are many gnome apps that I recommend too, and they work very well on plasma, like org.gnome.Snapshot as a camera app

5

Hello boredsquirrel,

I accept your comment that I might need to read more!!

The package I downloaded, burned to USB and installed came with both Dolphin and Okular preloaded and no other packages are required so long as they worked. It seems logical to me to assume the “Discover Software” on the taskbar is provided to load/delete additional software. You are correct in assuming that I know nothing about Flatpaks or Flathubs, and as a normal computer user, why would I.

Being a novice to Linux, I have usually found that community’s offer good advice. I look forward to visiting GitHub

Thanks,

Allan