Public bug reported:
I am running Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS. I added the apt source
https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu in order to
install Firefox through a regular deb package rather than with the snap
transitional package of the official Ubuntu sources. This installed
version 151.0.2 of Firefox.
My desktop environment is MATE and I therefore also have the package
ubuntu-mate-default-settings version 24.04.4 installed from an official
source.
However I had no shortcut to Firefox in the MATE menu. This observation
holds whatever menu was used (MATE menu, Advanced MATE menu, Brisk menu,
Compact menu, etc.) and Firefox was not found either by using the search
field of, e.g., Brisk menu.
I long was puzzled because /usr/share/applications contains a valid
firefox.desktop file. And if I duplicate this file, change the 'Name'
field from "Firefox Web Browser" to something else while keeping the
rest of the content unchanged in the copy, and reconstruct the MATE
menu, the shortcut corresponding to my copy pops up in the menu.
This has lead me to the explanation: ubuntu-mate-default-settings
installed another firefox.desktop file with the exact same 'Name' field
in /usr/share/mate/applications with the instruction "NoDisplay=true". I
do not completely get the reason why this file is installed by ubuntu-
mate-default-settings but I suspect the instruction "NoDisplay=true" is
here to avoid having the shortcut appearing twice in the menu. But it
actually defeats the purpose as it makes it completely disappear.
It is possible to fix the behavior for a given user by copying
/usr/share/mate/applications/firefox.desktop to
$HOME/.local/share/applications and replacing "NoDisplay=true" by
"NoDisplay=false". This is indeed what is performed when one right-
clicks on the menu and do "Edit the menu": Firefox appears in the list
under the "Internet" category but is unselected (revealing the fact that
a firefox.desktop is present and detected but intentionally made
hidden). If one selects it, MATE creates the proper file in
$HOME/.local/share/applications.
Anyway, IMHO it is clear that the default expected behavior when one
installs Firefox (let it be through the official package that uses snap
or the package on launchpadcontent.net) is that a shortcut appears in
the menu, without any intervention of the user. So I definitely
considers the observed behavior as a bug, stemming from an
incompatibility of configuration between the package "ubuntu-mate-
default-settings" and the package "firefox" as is provided by the
launchpadcontent.net mirror.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
Package: ubuntu-mate-default-settings 24.04.4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-124.124-generic 6.8.12
Uname: Linux 6.8.0-124-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.28.1-0ubuntu3.8
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Mon Jun 1 12:16:57 2026
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: ubuntu-mate-settings
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
modified.conffile..etc.default.apport: [modified]
mtime.conffile..etc.default.apport: 2024-07-22T16:59:07
** Affects: ubuntu-mate-settings (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: amd64 apport-bug noble
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2154734
Title:
Firefox launcher is hidden in the MATE menu
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