1404540 - "Make Default..." does nonsense, sets browser to Thunderbird and breaks xdg-open on URLs

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1494436

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect, P2)

Description

[u580221]

Attachment: Video screencast of Firefox Nightly breaking the default web app in a failed attempt at making itself the default browser

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:58.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0
Build ID: 20170929100122

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to about:preferences#general
2. Click "Make Default..."


Actual results:

xdg-open on URLs is now broken (terminates without anything happening, nothing opens), gnome-shell settings show that "Thunderbird" is set in "Default Applications" for "Web"


Expected results:

Nightly is correctly set as web browser for opening URLs

Comment 1

[u580221]

Firefox version is 58, which was unavailable from the Version dropdown for some reason.

Comment 2

[u580221]

I forgot to mention this, but I have seen this bug sporadically for a really long time probably going back to Firefox 35 or something. I have only now had a screen recorder installed of which I knew how to use it, so that I could record it happening live. Therefore, it's probably not a recent regression if that info helps in any way with locating the underlying issue.

Comment 3

[john]

not sure what gnome does or expects but "Make Default..." does work (with any WM)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1427383

Comment 4

[u580221]

not sure what gnome does or expects but "Make Default..." does work (with any WM)

No, sometimes it absolutely doesn't. That is why I filed this bug.

Just had this happen again, firefox developer edition prompted this dialog despite being the default and "Make default..." made it set thunderbird(!) as a default and then clicking a link from within thunderbird itself leads to tons of confused background idling thunderbird instances called with the URL. After launching firefox developer edition again manually the dialog came up AGAIN, and "Make default..." fixed it again.

So no, this is still broken. And it is quite annoying when it happens

Comment 5

[Adam Gashlin (he/him) [:agashlin] (ex-moco)]

I think this is the same issue as the later bug 1494436, I'm closing this one as a duplicate as I did more analysis over in bug 1494436 comment 1. I don't have a fix for it, it might have to be fixed on the Thunderbird side.