I think I worked out at least part of the problem, so might not be a
gnome-control-center bug after all. gnome-control-center uses the
mimetype "video/x-ogm+ogg" to determine the default Video app in Default
Applications. SMplayer does not have this mimetype in its
smplayer.desktop file, but instead has "video/x-ogm". None of the other
video players that I see have that specific mimetype in their .desktop
files, so when gnome-control-center sets the default for the mimetypes
present in the .desktop file, a line: video/x-ogm=smplayer.desktop will
still exist in ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list.

The curious part is why should it care? It asks for "video/x-ogm+ogg",
which is set correctly. The problem is that when glib loads the
mimetypes from mimeapps.list, it calls a function
xdg_mime_unalias_mime_type() on "video/x-ogm", and as it happens,
/usr/share/mime/aliases has a line "video/x-ogm video/x-ogm+ogg". So if
"video/x-ogm=smplayer.desktop" happens to appear later in mimeapps.list,
it will end up overwriting the true default value in the hashtable.

I find that if I change the mimetype in smplayer.desktop to
"video/x-ogm+ogg" and delete the "video/x-ogm=smplayer.desktop" line
from mimeapps.list, then gnome-control-center will again correctly let
me switch between totem, vlc and smplayer as defaults. So that might be
a fix, in smplayer instead. Might be a bit fragile though, since if
another app comes along doing the same thing, it will expose the same
bug.

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You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop
Packages, which is subscribed to gnome-control-center in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1177012

Title:
  Selecting default application in System Settings does not present
  predictable results.

Status in “gnome-control-center” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Beginning with 13.04 I've noticed that Ubuntu has been a little
  unpredictable with selecting the default application, particularly for
  videos. I have Totem, VLC, and SMPlayer installed. I am not able to
  change the default video application properly. Earlier I had these
  findings:

  Selected VLC to be default video player. Closed/reopene System
  Settings - Details - Default Applications. Totem was still default. I
  installed SMPlayer, and somehow was able to have success with setting
  SMPlayer as default. Once done, I tried to change the default away
  from SMPlayer. I changed it to Totem and closed/reopend System
  Settings. SMPlayer was still default. Changed to VLC and
  closed/reopend System Settings. SMPlayer was still default. I did an
  apt-get remove --purge smplayer, and now Totem was the default. I
  changed to VLC, closed/reopened, but Totem was still default.

  I'd like to point out that if I right click on the file and go to
  Properties - Open With tab, I can successfully select the new default
  application for that file type without issue. (at one point I did have
  to hit "reset", as even then it wasn't allowing me to change the
  default, but since then everything has worked fine)

  Bottom line, System Settings does not allow me to select the default
  video application properly, as it doesn't seem to accurately change
  the settings as an end user would expect.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
  Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu24
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-19.30-generic 3.8.8
  Uname: Linux 3.8.0-19-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Mon May  6 13:41:39 2013
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-04-30 (6 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
  MarkForUpload: True
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
   activity-log-manager-control-center 0.9.4-0ubuntu6.1
   deja-dup                            26.0-0ubuntu1
   gnome-control-center-signon         0.1.6bzr13.04.05-0ubuntu1
   gnome-control-center-unity          1.2daily13.04.09-0ubuntu1
   indicator-datetime                  12.10.3daily13.03.26-0ubuntu1

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