276215 - TB cannot start browser for links in email

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 276117

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Olaf]

- when clicking a URL in a message, nothing happens
- in tools -> options -> attachments there is no way to set a file association;
no associations are set

Comment 1

[Doug Wright]

Do you have a default browser set up on your system?

Comment 2

[Olaf]

I do not know how to set up a "default browser" on Debian 3.1/WMaker, AFAIK
there is no such setting

Comment 3

[Martin von Gagern]

Have a look at this page, this solved the same problem for me.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/linuxurls.html
Just modify your pref.js by hand.

Comment 4

[Olaf]

Thanks to Martin for his help. It is good to know that at least someone is
listening! ;-)

I found out the same already, so I started vi and felt like being in the 90ths
back again. ;-)

My opinion is that there should be a better way to introduce FF to TB and vice
versa on Unix platforms. This means that if I could tell TB which browser it
should launch when clicking on http URLs this would be great. Same thing with
mailto URLs in FF.

Comment 5

[Martin von Gagern]

There is some discussion in this direction in bug 222020 and bug 276117.

I think you'd really want some user interface to configure default browser
behaviour. It would be nice if you could configure a whole list of context menu
commands, like "open in default browser", "open in existing window", "open in
new tab", "open in new window", "open using my very special browser" and so on,
each of them (except the system default) with its own command line.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 7

[Martin von Gagern]

This bug should not be closed, since there is still no UI to change the default
browser setting in my TB version 1.0.7 (20051005) on Linux. If there is some
more active bug report where this issue is discussed, one could probably make
this a dup, but none of those above looks that way. Someone could probably also
make this an enhancement request.

Comment 8

[u279076]

I confirm that this bug is an issue on Trunk (3.0x) and only affects users on Windows XP at this point.  Users on Linux and Mac, or users on any platform using 2.0x are not affected.  This bug only happens if Minefield is configured to launch Profile Manager every time.

Required to reproduce:
- Have Minefield 3.0a6 installed and fully updated.
- Have 3.0a6 set as the default browser and set to run Profile Manager every time (uncheck "do not check at startup")
- Have TB 2.0.0.0 set up with an email account

Steps to reproduce:
1. Open TB 2.0 and sign into an email account
2. Open an email with a url in the message
3. Click on the url
4. Open task manager and sort by process name

Actual results:
Minefield will not launch but there will be a firefox.exe process in the task manager.

Expected results:
Minefield should launch properly, starting with the profile manager, and navigate to the url.

Reproducible: always

This bug can also be reproduced by selecting some other file (ex. text, image), right clicking on it and selecting "open with" and browse for Minefield 3.0a6.  As long as Profile Manager is configured to start every time, Minefield will hang on startup.

This bug can be worked around by doing any of the following:
- Having Minefield open already
- Turning off profile manager by selecting a profile and checking "do not check at startup"
- Copy the url, open Minefield, paste it into the location bar, press enter or click "green triangle"

This might also be a regression like bug 383875.

Comment 9

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Anthony: a Thunderbird Linux bug that is a duplicate of other Thunderbird Linux bugs about how finding a default browser to open on Linux used to be impossible, and then became difficult for non-GNOME users, is most emphatically *not* a Windows Firefox bug about commandline handling and the profile manager.