gvfs-open/xdg-open shows message about 'gio open' which confuses user

I believe this is specific to MATE as I was unable to recreate this on an Ubuntu Artful install.

The error message seems to be generated by xdg-open.

See this console output on MATE session:

$ xdg-open http://goo.gl
This tool has been deprecated, use 'gio open' instead.
See 'gio help open' for more info.

gvfs-open is affected too

$ gvfs-open http://goo.gl
This tool has been deprecated, use 'gio open' instead.
See 'gio help open' for more info.

Got the same message from xdg-open on GNOME and Unity sessions.

that's not a gvfs issue, the command there is deprecated so it's normal that it informs the user about the new command to use

It is not normal.
Original bug-report was written against apport.
I started to call xdg-open and gvfs-open directly to analyze the problem.

Apport uses xdg-open (which calls gvfs-open) in /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/ui.py .
So apport uses deprecated mechanism. It is not critical. But in 16.04 LTS I do not have such message.

apport falls back to python's webbrowser.py module, if xdg-open is not available, which also utilizes xdg-open.

 $ ipython3
import Python 3.6.3 (default, Oct 3 2017, 21:45:48)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 5.1.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
? -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help -> Python's own help system.
object? -> Details about 'object', use 'object??' for extra details.

In [1]: import webbrowser

In [2]: webbrowser.open('http://www.ubuntu.com')
Out[2]: True

In [3]: This tool has been deprecated, use 'gio open' instead.
See 'gio help open' for more info.

This is fixed in xdg-util's current upstream release 1.1.2+

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

This is the xdg-utils commit which adds support for preferring 'gio open'.

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/commit/?id=0d6eebb27c562e8644ccf616ebdbddf82d0d2dd8

Thanks Brian, I had started looking at that bug didn't update the bug so I'm attaching the patch I have in case it's useful. The build is failing due to a test error then though which I didn't debug

Hello Norbert, or anyone else affected,

Accepted xdg-utils into artful-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xdg-utils/1.1.1-1ubuntu3 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-artful to verification-done-artful. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-artful. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I tested this by using python3 to import webbrowser and then using webbrowser.open('http://www.ubuntu.com'). With the version of xdg-utils in the release pocket I received the warning about gvfs-open being deprecated. With the new version of xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu3) in -proposed I no longer received the warning.

There were also changes to xdg-email, xdg-copy, and xdg-mime so those might be worth testing too.

Yes, that solved it for me after activating "proposed" on artful, with xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu3)

This bug was fixed in the package xdg-utils - 1.1.1-1ubuntu3

---------------
xdg-utils (1.1.1-1ubuntu3) artful; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/prefer-gio.patch: switch to preferring gio commands over
    gvfs ones. (LP: #1721948)

 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Wed, 18 Oct 2017 17:12:39 -0700

The verification of the Stable Release Update for xdg-utils has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.