bug#15144: 24.3.50; browse-url silently fails

[Thierry Volpiatto <thierry.volpiatto@gmail.com>]

Sam Steingold <sds@gnu.org> writes:

> browse-url silently fails:
>
> $ emacs -Q
> M-x browse-url RET http://gnu.org RET
>
> the *Messages* buffer now has this:
>
> Waiting for process to die...done
>
> The google chrome (the default browser) does not display anyting.

Looks that xdg-open actually returns an error:

xdg-open http://www.google.fr
Error: No running window found

So it is more a bug in xdg-open than a bug in Emacs.
Though the function calling it should use `start-process` instead of
`call-process` IMO.

The other functions calling directly a browser seem to works.
Bypassing xdg-open function work around this bug:

(defvar browse-url-never-use-xdg-open t)
(defadvice browse-url-can-use-xdg-open (around no-xdg-open activate)
  (unless browse-url-never-use-xdg-open
    ad-do-it))
 
-- 
Thierry
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