Open Recent Items show as always empty in Gedit

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

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

@Seb128 Thanks for the response. I've filed it in gnome bugzilla and here's the link:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=765109

Thanks

Looks like a Ubuntu issue to me, since in that Gnome bug, upstream says recent files have been moved to beneath the "Open \/" button on gedit's taskbar:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742425#c3

And indeed they are there! However, on Ubuntu 16.04, gedit also has a "File" -> "Open Recent" menu, which is now non-functional (it's always empty).

It's a bit confusing since "File" -> "Open Recent" has always been the way to find recent files. It should either be removed or work.

> "File" -> "Open Recent" menu, which is now non-functional (it's always empty).

it's not always empty, it has an item to restore recently closed tabs, which indeed is less useful than actually listing recent documents and a bit confusing

I've had the same problem since upgrading to 16.04. It looks like the dropdown list from the Open tab is showing the recent files, but not the File->Open Recent menu item.

Looks to me that the 'Recent files' menu item needs to be removed, unless a way can be found to re-port the old behaviour into the Unity menus again. No point having that entry with just 'Reopen closed tabs' in it; it's misleading.

I don't like the Gnome "Open \/" menu so much as it doesn't work well at all with the keyboard. If I type alt-O, then I can't type alt-D to open the 'Other Documents' button, because Unity assumes I want the Document menu in the main menu-bar. Also, there is no alt-O-1, alt-O-2 keybinding to quickly access past files -- you have to hit the arrow keys until you highlight the file you want.

Are convenient key-bindings falling from favour somehow? Same problems occurring all the time with LibreOffice these days too...

Is there a way to get the list of recent edited files?
Here I cannot get this list as reported in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gedit/+bug/1320691

https://help.gnome.org/users/gedit/stable/gedit-open-recent.html.en
describes how to get a list of recent files but this list is always empty.

Experiencinig same problem onUbuntu 16.04 (latest). Was working fine before a recent update.

Re. #8: In 3.18.3, the dropdown list in the "Open" button doesn't show any recent files, either.

experiencing the same problem after upgrading to ubuntu 16.04

I'm using Linux Mint 18.1 (based on Ubuntu 16.04).
I was experiencing the same problem with gedit and I noticed that GIMP was also not populating the document history. A search for this issue with GIMP found a post that explained that under Preferences -> System Settings -> Privacy, there is an option to "Remember recently accessed files" (defaulting to "Off"). I've enabled that and now I'm getting my history lists again, although on gedit, it's only through the Open \/ menu.
Personally, I'd prefer it if the File menu was fixed, but if we're going to have to use the new open drop-down, then the "Open Recent" option needs to be removed to avoid further confusion.

Thank you so much jimmack (jim-oss-ltd), after 4 years I got it to work now!