1611116 - Can't open .msg files from Firefox in Outlook 365

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1541780

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Vaidotas]

Attachment: MOZILLA ERROR.PNG

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.130 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Open any .MSG file with outlook directly from Firefox.

Actual results:

Give out an error.

Expected results:

.MSG file should open in outlook.

Comment 1

[Gingerbread Man]

What is your exact version of Firefox?
Does the filename contain any spaces?
Do you use Citrix software?

Comment 2

[Vaidotas]

Firefox version 72.0.2
Yes the file name with spaces
Citrix -No(In reply to Gingerbread Man from comment #1)

What is your exact version of Firefox?
Does the filename contain any spaces?
Do you use Citrix software?

Comment 3

[:Gijs (he/him)]

:toshi, any idea what's going on here or how to debug further?

Comment 4

[Toshihito Kikuchi [:toshi]]

I think I reproduced the issue with the following steps. This happens regardless whether a path contains whitespaces or not.

1. Install Outlook application
2. Open Firefox and navigate to a page containing a link to a .msg file
3. Click a link to a .msg file
4. In the opening dialog, choose [Open with] and select [Other...]
5. In the [Choose Helper Application] dialog, choose Microsoft Outlook
6. In the opening dialog, click [OK]
7. Outlook shows an error dialog.

To open a .msg file with Outlook, it seems that we need to add /f option (e.g. "outlook.exe /f path-to-file.msg"). However, when firefox tries to open a file with a custom application, we launch the executable with a path to the file without any options. That's why this dialog is displayed. Probably we need to construct a command based on the registry information, not just appending a filepath to an executable's path.

Comment 5

[Toshihito Kikuchi [:toshi]]

(In reply to Toshihito Kikuchi [:toshi] from comment #4)

Probably we need to construct a command based on the registry information, not just appending a filepath to an executable's path.

Actually this will be a huge work.

An official way to get the right command to open a file is to use AssocQueryString or IQueryAssociations. We can query a command for an executable. For example, we can query for notepad.exe and get a command "%SystemRoot%\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1", but the problem is some applications do not register an executable's name. Outlook is one of those applications. So we cannot simply know a command to open a .msg file with outlook.exe if it's selected as a custom application.

Even though there is a way to query a command, another problem is some applications use DDE to open a file. Outlook does not use a DDE, but Excel does. To use DDE, we need to post a window message after launching a process.

Vaidotas, I have a couple of questions for you.

If I select the default application to open a .msg file (which is Outlook), Outlook opens the file correctly.

If the issue you have is the same as my repro, you choose a custom application to open a .msg file. Is that correct? If so, is there any reason you don't use the default application to open a .msg file?

I attached a screenshot of firefox's opening dialog. The first item "Microsoft Outlook (default)" is the default appication and it works good. The other options are a custom application. If you choose "Microsoft Outlook" as a custom application, this issue happens.

Comment 6

[Toshihito Kikuchi [:toshi]]

Attachment: firefox-file-opening.png

Comment 7

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Toshihito Kikuchi [:toshi] from comment #5)

An official way to get the right command to open a file is to use AssocQueryString or IQueryAssociations. We can query a command for an executable. For example, we can query for notepad.exe and get a command "%SystemRoot%\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1", but the problem is some applications do not register an executable's name. Outlook is one of those applications. So we cannot simply know a command to open a .msg file with outlook.exe if it's selected as a custom application.

Even though there is a way to query a command, another problem is some applications use DDE to open a file. Outlook does not use a DDE, but Excel does. To use DDE, we need to post a window message after launching a process.

We haven't heard from the reporter, but I think these issues are basically bug 1541780 - :toshi, can you confirm?

Comment 8

[Toshihito Kikuchi [:toshi]]

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #7)

We haven't heard from the reporter, but I think these issues are basically bug 1541780 - :toshi, can you confirm?

Oh, I didn't notice it. Yes, this is exactly bug 1541780.