1933006 - Firefox file-> email link regression: Thunderbird is already running

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Widget: Gtk, defect, P3)

Description

[Todd]

Attachment: App assignments

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:124.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/124.0

Steps to reproduce:

Dear Firefox developers,

We have a regression in File-> eMail link

Fedora 41
thunderbird-128.4.3-1.fc41.x86_64

firefox-131.0.2-1.fc41.x86_64 has the regression
firefox-124.0.1-2.fc40.x86_64 does not have the regresson

Since upgrading from Fedora 39 to Fedora 41, when I go into
--> Firefox -> File -> eMail link

I get told that Thunderbird is already running, which it is. This was never an issue before.

Downgrading to Fedora 40's firefox-124.0.1-2.fc40.x86_64 give the functionality back.

Please note that this issue can not be reproduced in Osmo, Thunar, Master PDF Editor, Krusader, All open Thunderbird's compose window without error.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Widget: Gtk' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[ValdikSS]

Running firefox-133.0.3-1.fc41.x86_64 on Fedora 41 (regular, non-Flatpak), and have this issue.

Comment 3

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

Yes, I see that too. May be Fedora specific. Will look at it.

Comment 4

[ValdikSS]

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2320090

Comment 5

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

I see that upstream Firefox works so it's really Fedora specific.

Comment 6

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

It's caused by hardcoded MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME in /usr/bin/firefox lanuch script:

# MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME sets app name for DBus services like Gnome Shell
# search provider or remote launcher
# DBus interface name (or prefix) is org.mozilla.MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME
if [ -z "$MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME" ]
then
  export MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME=firefox
fi

Comment 7

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

We need to flip these prefs to command line arguments (MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME and MOZ_APP_REMOTING_NAME) as env variables break Firefox/Thunderbird interoperability.

Comment 8

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

The bug become visible when TB was rebased to 128.0 and uses MOZ_DBUS_APP_NAME too.

Comment 10

[Martin Stránský [:stransky] (ni? me)]

Fedora side of the bug should be fixed by firefox-133.0.3-2 package.

Comment 12

[Ilya Zverev]

I confirm it's fixed on Fedora 40 with 133.0.3-2. Thank you Martin!

Comment 13

[James E. LaBarre]

I'm on Fedora 40 as well, and this STILL fails. I've tried this with Firefox v133, and Thunderbird versions 128.5.0, 128.5.2, and 133.0. All of them still fail with the error that Thunderbird is already running.

Comment 14

[support]

Interesting observation:

The same menu can not be accessed in thunderbird, when the link in Firefox opens a "new Email" window in Thunderbird.

I did not recognize this before, because i did not use that menu in that context.

Comment 15

[support]

(In reply to support from comment #14)

Interesting observation:

The same menu can not be accessed in thunderbird, when the link in Firefox opens a "new Email" window in Thunderbird.

I did not recognize this before, because i did not use that menu in that context.

Can one delete this comment, it was for a different bug . Sorry.

Comment 16

[Jed Davis [:jld] ⟨⏰|UTC-8⟩ ⟦he/him⟧]

(In reply to support from comment #15)

Can one delete this comment, it was for a different bug . Sorry.

I tagged them offtopic, which will hide them.

Comment 21

[support]

Fedora 40 and i just wanted to write "confirmed it works" , which it does, but TB does not allow me to use the menu panel with a touch screen.

so technically, this is fixed and a new problem occurs :(

I tested TB already running and TB to be started by "send link by email" , both ways worked without the "already running" message.

Comment 23

[Leandru Martin]

Bug 1876691 (about the Microsoft Store installation of Thunderbird not opening mailto links) was closed as a duplicate of this, but I don't think that's correct at all. The comment insisting that it was a duplicate said that that bug was in Firefox, not in Thunderbird. However, mailto links opened in another browser (e.g. Microsoft Edge) also do not properly open in Thunderbird. Following a mailto link in any app fails to properly open Thunderbird, even when Thunderbird is properly configured to open mailto links in Windows settings. I tried opening mailto links in other apps as well, including Word and Microsoft To Do. I tried this with Firefox fully closed as well.

Maybe internally it still has something to do with the bug in this thread...but I thought it was worth pointing out that Bug 1876691 happens even when Firefox is not involved.

Comment 24

[ValdikSS]

This bug was about packaging issue in Fedora Linux really.

Comment 25

[Eric L.]

Is it really a packaging issue in Fedora or did the packaging in Fedora highlight the underlying issue?

For me the underlying issue is that we have two programs, Firefox and Thunderbird, using the same environment variable requiring potentially different values. IMHO it makes sense to use the same environment passing links from Firefox to Thunderbird and vice-versa, but this goes wrong if both programs can't share the same variables with the same values.

The script I put in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=630548#c28 is only a workaround, and the real solution should be possibly to start introducing application specific environment variables, e.g. MOZ_FIR_... and MOZ_THU_..., and making them overwrite the default MOZ_... variables at least in a transition period.

Comment 26

[Amanita]

cannot reproduce on NixOS, Firefox 139.0.4, Thunderbird 138.0.1