Desktop launch icon "there was an error launching the application"

Question

I created the following .desktop item for launching MySQL Workbench:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=0.99
Name=MSWB
Comment=MySQL Workbench
Exec=/usr/bin/mysql-workbench
Icon=/home/steve/Pictures/mswb.png
Terminal=false
Type=application
Categories=application

The owner is root and the permissions are

-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  root   183 May 18 15:49 mswb.desktop

When I double click the icon I get "there was an error launching the application." There is nothing in the log. Following the advice on another thread, I issued this from a terminal window

awk -F= '/Exec=/{system($2)}' mswb.desktop

and the program started right up. Any idea how to troubleshoot?

Answer 1

The .desktop file for MySQL Workbench already exists in /usr/share/applications. Here it is...

$ more mysql-workbench.desktop [Desktop Entry]
Name=MySQL Workbench
Comment=MySQL Database Design, Administration and Development Tool
Exec=mysql-workbench
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=mysql-workbench
MimeType=application/vnd.mysql-workbench-model;
Categories=GTK;Database;Development;
StartupWMClass=mysql-workbench-bin