On macOS "Save as..." always defaults to saving with ".R" extension rather than ".py"

[battaglia01]

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

Every time I save a file, it always defaults to saving it as .R rather than .py, even though .py is the first extension in the filter being passed to Qt.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Try to save a file
2. It defaults to .R
3. Even if you're calling "Save As..." on an existing python file, it still defaults to .R

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

It should save as .py by default particularly if the existing file name is already .py

Thanks Mike, Is There A One-Line Solution?

There sure is! Look here on Line 133:

https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/blob/bb6d9301c9356162970e9ea7043bd4287e1ddb5b/spyder/config/utils.py#L119C1-L133C45

Change this

    favorite_exts = ['.py', '.R', '.jl', '.ipynb', '.md', '.pyw', '.pyx',
                     '.c', '.cpp', '.json', '.dat', '.csv', '.tsv', '.txt',
                     '.ini', '.html', '.js', '.h', '.bat']

to this:

    favorite_exts = ['', '.py', '.R', '.jl', '.ipynb', '.md', '.pyw', '.pyx',
                     '.c', '.cpp', '.json', '.dat', '.csv', '.tsv', '.txt',
                     '.ini', '.html', '.js', '.h', '.bat']

This solves the problem. For whatever reason, on Mac, it seems to read the second extension as default, maybe because it expects the first to be *.* or something. Not sure if the same behavior on all platforms - if so, you may want to do this only if it's Mac.

Versions

Spyder 5.5.5
Python 3.11.9 64-bit | Qt 5.15.8 | PyQt5 5.15.9 | macOS 14.5 (arm64)

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
applaunchservices >=0.3.0        :  0.3.0 (OK)
atomicwrites >=1.2.0             :  1.4.1 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0                  :  5.2.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0              :  3.0.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0             :  2.6.0 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111      :  20230430 (OK)
intervaltree >=3.0.2             :  3.1.0 (OK)
IPython >=8.13.0,<9.0.0,!=8.17.1 :  8.26.0 (OK)
jedi >=0.17.2,<0.20.0            :  0.19.1 (OK)
jellyfish >=0.7                  :  1.0.4 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0               :  4.23.0 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0                 :  25.2.1 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0                  :  7.16.4 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0                 :  1.7.0 (OK)
parso >=0.7.0,<0.9.0             :  0.8.4 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0                  :  4.9.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4                :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                     :  6.0.0 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                   :  2.18.0 (OK)
pylint >=3.1,<4                  :  3.2.5 (OK)
pylint_venv >=3.0.2              :  3.0.3 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0              :  0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.11.0,<1.12.0           :  1.11.0 (OK)
pylsp_black >=2.0.0,<3.0.0       :  2.0.0 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=3.2.0,<3.3.0        :  3.2.3 (OK)
qstylizer >=0.2.2                :  0.2.3 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.3.1,<1.4.0         :  1.3.1 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.5.1,<5.6.0         :  5.5.2 (OK)
qtpy >=2.1.0                     :  2.4.1 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7                    :  1.3.0 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0              :  70.2.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                   :  7.3.7 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.5.2,<2.6.0    :  2.5.2 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0             :  4.6.2 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1              :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3                :  4.0.1 (OK)
zmq >=24.0.0                     :  26.0.3 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                    :  None (NOK)
matplotlib >=3.0.0               :  None (NOK)
numpy >=1.7                      :  None (NOK)
pandas >=1.1.1                   :  None (NOK)
scipy >=0.17.0                   :  None (NOK)
sympy >=0.7.3                    :  None (NOK)

[battaglia01]

Before:

After:

[alishaexe]

I'm also having this issue, and I'm not able to fix it. Do you know what the file name in config is that needs to be edited to fix it?

[battaglia01]

Yes, it's here: https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/blob/bb6d9301c9356162970e9ea7043bd4287e1ddb5b/spyder/config/utils.py#L119C1-L133C45

[alishaexe]

I'm probably being dumb but I can't find that file in any of the system folders, and then I tried saving the file with the changes and spyder still saves as .py.R

[battaglia01]

What do you mean you can't find the file but you saved it with the changes?

[alishaexe]

I downloaded it from GitHub and saved it into the config folder. There wasn't an existing file called utilis.py if there was supposed to be one.
But even after downloading the file and making the change I still get .py.R

[shreyasshaurav]

I downloaded it from GitHub and saved it into the config folder. There wasn't an existing file called utilis.py if there was supposed to be one. But even after downloading the file and making the change I still get .py.R

Hi @alishaexe In case you are still facing the issue.
it would be best if you traverse this path from the command line: /Applications/Spyder.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.10/spyder/config
and open the utils.py file and edit it as suggested.

[schmoelder]

It may be unrelated, but for the opening dialog, the default in Files of type field seems to be "none" (i.e. it appears empty) which means, I don't see any files at all, only directories. I always have to manually select "Python files" or "All files" so see the content of the current working directory.

Edit: Actually, I can see .md, .toml, .cfg, and .ipynb files. So it's actually just the python files, I'm missing. Also, I'm not actually on MacOS but on Ubuntu 24.04, so I can open another issue, but the issue just seemed to be quite similar...

[ccordoba12]

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback! We'll take a look at this one for 5.5.6, to be released shortly.

[ccordoba12]

@mrclary, could you take a look at this one? It doesn't seem to hard to fix and only affects Mac users.

[mrclary]

I would guess that #22248 (comment) is related; I've noticed this as well, but haven't yet taken the time to track down when this first manifested.

I'm wondering if this could be related to Qt. Nevertheless, I'll investigate further and see what I find.

[mrclary]

It seems the underlying issue is related to the pygments lexer ('Mojo', ('mojo', '🔥'), ('*.mojo', '*.🔥'), ('text/x-mojo', 'application/x-mojo')). The presence of the unconventional extension '*.🔥' in the QFileDialog filter causes the issue. I don't know why this extension causes the first extension in the list to be ignored. But it also causes the list of extensions to appear in the filter drop-down menu, which is also undesireable:

[AbhilashAradhya]

Is the issue resolved? Any updates? Can I use Spyder allowing the .R extension to normally write and run python files in the meantime?

[mrclary]

Is the issue resolved? Any updates? Can I use Spyder allowing the .R extension to normally write and run python files in the meantime?

@AbhilashAradhya, I've submitted a PR that should resolve this issue for Spyder 5.5.6. Until then, you will need to explicitly select the "All files" option at the bottom of the file filter dropdown menu and manually type the .py extension. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I think this issue may have been introduced with the update from PyQt 5.12 to 5.15.