227786 - mozilla-xremote-client "mailto()" returns failure, but makes Firefox try to launch the mail program

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Anders Kaseorg]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031206 Firebird/0.7+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031206 Firebird/0.7+

I'm using the 2003-12-06-09-trunk gtk+xft2 Linux build. I also use (well, am
trying to use) Thunderbird 0.4 as my mail program, although Thunderbird doesn't
directly affect this bug.

When Firebird is running and Thunderbird is not,
  mozilla-xremote-client "mailto([e-mail])"
exits with status 3, indicating failure, as it should. However, Firebird still
gets the command, and tries to launch the system default mail program.

This is particularly bad if the system default mail program is a Thunderbird
wrapper script that contains the above command (xremote || launch a new
thunderbird) -- it leads to an infinite loop creating thunderbird windows!

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Firebird.
2. mozilla-xremote-client "mailto([e-mail])"


Actual Results:  
Exit status 3, but Firebird launches the mail program.

Expected Results:  
Exit status 3, and nothing happens, so the script that called xremote can detect
failure and launch the mail program itself.

Comment 1

[Anders Kaseorg]

I suspect this report is being ignored, because everyone was excluded when I
sent it... :-(

Comment 2

[Anders Kaseorg]

Can somebody look at this please? It makes the Firebird/Thunderbird combo
virtually useless since there's no way to stop them from interfering with each
other!

Comment 3

[Jérôme Schell]

I confirm this bug with Linux Firefox 0.8 and Thunderbird 0.5+.
It has just DOSed my machine by launching an infinite number of Thunderbird windows.

Comment 4

[Sarah]

(In reply to comment #3)
> I confirm this bug with Linux Firefox 0.8 and Thunderbird 0.5+.
> It has just DOSed my machine by launching an infinite number of Thunderbird
windows.

In my case, if thunderbird is not running it works fine, but if thunderbird is
running and I call it with -remote from firefox I have to "pkill thunderbird" in
a real hurry as my window manager gets taken over by many compose windows
(spawning about 1 per second). This is in the current version of fluxbox.

Run script is:


export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/opt/thunderbird
MT="$1"
shift
SJ="$2"
shift

if [ $(ps aux | grep thunderbird | wc -l) -gt 4 ]
then
        # thunderbird is running
        $MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME/thunderbird -remote "mailto($MT?subject=$SJ$@)"
else
        # thunderbird is not running
        $MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME/thunderbird -P default -compose mailto:$MT?subject=$SJ$@
fi 


sarahweb -AT- walters -d0t- id -d0t- au

Comment 5

[Ran]

duplicates bug 237325?

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Is this still a problem with the latest branch release or nightly build?

Comment 7

[Anders Kaseorg]

With the current branch nightly, mozilla-xremote-client -a firefox
'mailto([e-mail])' gives:
  ./mozilla-xremote-client: Error: Failed to send command: 509 internal error
This can't be a good thing.

Comment 8

[Constantinos A. Kotsokalis]

With firefox 1.0 PR and thunderbird 0.8, the problem persists as described in
comment #7. Send link and mailto: anchors are not usable through firefox...

Comment 9

[Al Plant]

mailto:  anchor on webpages under firefox browser does not bring up an email Thunderbird screen under FreeBSD 6 Unix OS. 

These Mozilla apps should be compatable, right?

Anyone know how to fix this?

Comment 10

[buovjaga]

Is this relevant anymore? If not, please close.

Comment 11

[Anders Kaseorg]

As of bug 1080319, mozilla-xremote-client no longer exists.