Ubuntu – How to configure Chrome to open magnet URI’s with Deluge

bittorrentchromiumdelugetransmission

After upgrading to Ubuntu 11.04 (natty) from 10.10, I can no longer open magnet (torrent) links in Chromium, and set deluge to automatically open and accept the URL.

(Edit: currently ".torrent" files are not a problem, but magnet URL's, e.g. of the form "magnet:?xt=urn:...", are now the only problem. Not sure if something updated…?)

Rather, now only transmission will automatically open ~~torrents~~, magnet links, etc. There doesn't seem to be a way to set deluge to be the default torrent client. (And, there also doesn't seem to be a "default application" setting for BitTorrent client to replace transmission w/ deluge.)

Notes:

I found some old threads on this issue, and only a one or two newer ones. The newer threads seem to suggest xdg-open is to blame. But not many people seem to be running into this problem, so… maybe it's just me?
Not using Firefox, so manually setting apps for mime-types or extensions doesn't work (that's not an option in chrome/chromium, AFAIK — you have to rely on the OS)
I uninstalled transmission, and then basically nothing happened when clicking on torrent/magnet links.
running from the shell also opens transmission (not deluge): xdg-open "magnet:?xt=urn:bt..&tr=http://tracker.....com/announce".

My current URL handlers are:

$ gconftool -a /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet
command = deluge "%s"
needs_terminal = false
enabled = true

The only work-around I have (which does work) is to rename /usr/bin/transmission-gtk{,.bak} and create my own /usr/bin/transmission-gtk:

$ cat /usr/bin/transmission-gtk
#!/bin/bash
deluge "$@"

Anyone else run into this, know of a bug, workaround, or…?

Best Answer

For 12.04 up to 16.04

In 12.04 and 13.04, deluge does include x-scheme-handler/magnet=deluge.desktop; in the desktop file. In my case, transmission was still opening magnet links. I had to tell gvfs-open preferring deluge with:

gvfs-mime --set x-scheme-handler/magnet deluge.desktop

For 18.04

gvfs-mime was deprecated and 'gio mime' used instead:

gio mime x-scheme-handler/magnet deluge.desktop

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to open magnet links from firefox with deluge

as of firefox 3.6 network.protocol-handler.external.* seems to no longer work

in about:config

network.protocol-handler.expose.magnet -> false

and 'reset' all other values to do with magnet.

once you click a magnet link you will be prompted to choose an application, navigate to and select /usr/bin/deluge

You might also try

$ gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/command 'deluge "%s"'
$ gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/needs_terminal false
$ gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/enabled true

Ubuntu – Where is Tor Browser opening Transmission from? How to open the “same” Transmission

Warning: Under no circumstances is it safe to use BitTorrent and Tor together. As an alternative, a VPN will be "safe" if you trust the VPN (in many countries, ISP's are required to log while VPN's are not), or you could use an anonymising network that was designed for file-sharing, such as I2P.

Proceed at your own risk.

How Tor-Browser uses Transmission

If I try to download a (legal!) torrent in the Tor Browser version of Firefox, it launches Transmission to do so. ... If, however, I try to launch Transmission from its location (usr/bin/transmission-gtk), it starts Transmission "fresh"

There is only one copy of the actual program, in /usr/bin/ as you noted. What Tor-browser does is start Transmission with a separate profile, so that torrents will be downloaded over Tor (this is usually slower). If you wish to download the torrent normally instead, start the normal Transmission, and then either save a torrent from Tor-browser and load it, or copy-and-paste the link from Tor-browser. The alternative is to simply browse using regular Firefox and click on the .torrent link, which should open normal Transmission.

Use one common profile for Tor-Transmission and regular Transmission

If you want Transmission to use a common profile for both normal and Tor-browser torrents, you can do the following: (step-by-step not given because it is very easy to lose all currently downloading/paused torrents when you do this!)

Regular Transmission profile is stored in $HOME/.config/transmission
Tor-browser Transmission profile is inside the tor-browser directory, e.g. tor-browser_en-US/.config/transmission
To create a common profile, you must create a symlink from one to the other using ln -s; of the two profiles, remove the transmission folder (rm -rf) of the one which is least used or contains fewer torrents (you will lose these); then recreate it as a symlink to the other transmission directory.
I recommend leaving the normal config ($HOME/.config) intact and linking the Tor config to it; if you do the reverse, your Transmission may not download unless you are connected to Tor. Note that your torrent downloading will occur over your regular, non-anonymous network in this case, even if you click on a torrent from within Tor-browser!