Redirect after browser authentication does not open application

Describe the bug

Authentication using the browser does not return to the application because it uses an unregistered mime-type scheme by the application.

Version & OS

• Source: GitHubDesktop-linux-2.5.3-linux1.deb
• Version: 2.1.0-linux1
• OS: Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon | Cinnamon v4.6.6 | Linux Kernel 5.4.0-42-generic | 64bits
• Processor: AMD A10-7860K Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G × 2
• Tested Browsers: Chrome 84.0.4147.105 | Firefox 79.0

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Download package from GitHubDesktop-linux-2.5.3-linux1.deb and install
2. Open application and go to: “Sign in to GitHub.com” (button) or File > Options > Accounts and sign in “GitHub.com” with “Sign in using your browser”
3. Sign in to GitHub.com if you have not done so before … authorize the application and confirm using username/email and password or use the security key

Expected behavior

In https://github.com/login/oauth/authorize is expected to redirect to the application through its own protocol (x-github-desktop-dev-auth) that the application must recognize.

Actual behavior

The redirect does not occur after confirming the “xdg-open” prompt … the application does not recognize the schema.

x-github-desktop-dev-auth://oauth?code=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&state=yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Screenshots

Additional context

This behavior has been observed in new installations on both Linux Mint 19.3 and 20.

When viewing the application’s “github-desktop.desktop” file, the protocol used in the browser was missing from the MimeTypes list of the file.

[subversivo58]

Palliative editing of the github-desktop.desktop file and adding the schema mime-type used in the redirect and updating the mime-type database solves the problem and in future attempts, the redirection returns to the application.

Steps:

1- Open /usr/share/applications/github-desktop.desktop with the text editor of your choice

sudo -H subl /usr/share/applications/github-desktop.desktop

2 - Add the scheme (“x-scheme-handler/x-github-desktop-dev-auth;”) in the “MimeType” list and save

[Desktop Entry]
Name=GitHub Desktop
Comment=Simple collaboration from your desktop
Exec="/opt/GitHub Desktop/github-desktop" %U
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=github-desktop
StartupWMClass=GitHub Desktop
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/x-github-client;x-scheme-handler/x-github-desktop-auth;x-scheme-handler/x-github-desktop-dev-auth;
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Development;

3 - Update mime types database

sudo update-desktop-database 

4 - Redo the authentication by the browser … now the redirect should open the application completing the authorization

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Note: after performing steps 1 to 3, it is no longer possible to reproduce the problem even if you uninstall and reinstall the package.

[shiftkey]

I’m going to close this out as I think I’ve configured everything right in the Debian installer as of version 2.4.1-linux2