248003 - Could not be set as the default mail application

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 109362

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[X x]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040614 Firefox/0.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040614 Firefox/0.9

Always when I start Mozilla Thunderbird I get this; "Mozilla Thunderbird Could
not be set as the default mail application because a registry key could not be
updated. Verify with your system administrator that you have write access to
your system registryl, and then try again"

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Mozilla Thunderbird
2. Answer 'Yes' on question whether to set as default

Actual Results:  
That popup

Expected Results:  
The popup should go away and should not re-appear

This is version 0.7 (20040616). Also happens if I manually try to set it via
options.

Did a quite thorough search for this bug as I'm sure others have seen it but
could not find it. Maybe just my searching skills are lacking...

Comment 1

[X x]

Attachment: Capture from Regmon

Comment 2

[X x]

Confirmed on Thunderbird 0.7.1.

See attachment 1 [details] [diff] [review] for Regmon.txt, output from Sysinternals Regmon on a typical 
startup. Pressed OK for setting Thunderbird as default application and stopped 
capture after the error popup.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

xref bug 224824 -- possibly a dupe.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

From bug 104256 comment 10:
> Right now we only one error message for handling all the error cases.
> The error message we have is 
> "Netscape Mail could not be set as the default mail application because a 
> registry key could not be updated. Verify with your system administrator that 
> you have write access to your system registry, and then try again."
> 
> It is better if we can have different messages. Here are the error cases.
> These cases can happen while setting/unsetting the preference.
>
> 1) Swapping the dll failed because it is in use or the user does not have
>    permission
> 2) Setting the registry keys failed.

Regarding DLL swap -- see bug 109362.

Comment 5

[Dimitrios]

Confirming on branch zipped version 0.8 (20040912). The dialog comes up every
time I start Tb. In order to reproduce, one must test under a new user account
(eg with "power user" privileges). Otherwise, a proper registry key (remnant
from previous installations) might prevent the bug from appearing. 
Curiously, registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Clients\Mail contains
"Mozilla Thunderbird which I assume to be is correct.
Moving to Installer component.

Comment 6

[Dimitrios]

*** Bug 252617 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Dimitrios]

I was wrong wrt the component : After saying yes to the aforementioned startup
dialog, Tools->Options->General shows that the preference hasn't been set
(option "Use Thunderbird as the default mail app" is not checked). Checking the
option from there isn't remembered either, at next startup. More likely a
Preferences issue.

Comment 8

[Dimitrios]

I use Thunderbird under "power user" rights. When I logged as administrator and
changed "Program Access and defaults" so that Thunderbird is the default mail
client for windows, the problem gone. Is anyone else able to resolve the bug
using that hint ?  

Comment 9

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Thomas Novin, did you ever check the information at bug 109362 comment 26 et 
seq?  That might provide a solution to your problem.

Dimitrios, unless you have gotten the error message seen in the original report, 
you have a different bug.

With TB 0.8, Win2K, I did see the make-default operation worked, just as you 
described: make-default with a non-Admin account did not "take" -- TB always 
asked if it should be made default on startup.  Running as an Admin and making 
it default then fixed the problem.  But I never saw the error message in 
comment 0, which is a completely different problem.

I believe Firefox has much the same problem.  Also, this behavior was different 
in TB 0.7.

Comment 10

[Rolf]

I did not check the code, but proberbly the wrong registry keys are set, check out:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/en-us/regentry/69673.asp?frame=true

Windows uses the information of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to determin which programs to
start. 

As of windows 2000:
"The content of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT comes from two sources:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes. If a
subkey or entry appears in either location, it also appears in
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. If the values of entries in the two Classes subkeys conflict,
only the value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes appears in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT."

Conclusion: HKLM for system default and HKCU for user default
and check for default in HKCR

Comment 11

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Conclusion: HKLM for system default and HKCU for user default
> and check for default in HKCR

Thomas Novin: That's all well and good, BUT -- it likely is unrelated to the 
error you listed in the original report:  "Mozilla Thunderbird Could not be set 
as the default mail application because a registry key could not be updated. 
Verify with your system administrator that you have write access to your system 
registry, and then try again."  

That error message and its cause (which is not necessarily registry related) is 
described at bug 104256 (as I noted in comment 4); and the solution to the "DLL 
Swap" problem is found at bug 109362 comment 26.

Comment 12

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #11)
> (In reply to comment #10)
> > Conclusion: HKLM for system default and HKCU for user default
> > and check for default in HKCR
> 
> Thomas Novin: That's all well and good, BUT [...]

I see I erred here -- comment 10 was by Rolf, not Thomas.  My apologies for the 
confusion.  Thomas Novin, I still am interested in your response to comment 9.

Comment 13

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

No response from reporter, duping.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 109362 ***