643593 - Opening Microsoft Works Spreadsheet *.xlr causes an error.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Paul Lau]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 Thunderbird/3.1.9

I have a client that is using Thunderbird 3.1.9 and MS Works 8.5 on a Windows Vista x86 Operating System.  When he receives an email with a file extension of .xlr.  He clicks on the attachment and a window appears stating "You have chosen to open *.xlr which is a: Microsoft Works Spreadsheet from mailbox:// What should Thunderbird do with this file? * Open with Microsoft Works Spreadsheet (default)".  So I click on "OK".  Then an error pops up stating "Cannot change the document C:\User...\*.xlr.  The document is read-only or is open by another user or application.  To change this file, save it with a different filename."  Then I click on "OK" and the *.xlr (MS Works Spreadsheet) opens up just fine.  How can I get the .xlr to open without the error appearing?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open *.xlr through attachment
2 [review].
3.
Actual Results:  
I have a client that is using Thunderbird 3.1.9 and MS Works 8.5 on a Windows Vista x86 Operating System.  When he receives an email with a file extension of .xlr.  He clicks on the attachment and a window appears stating "You have chosen to open *.xlr which is a: Microsoft Works Spreadsheet from mailbox:// What should Thunderbird do with this file? * Open with Microsoft Works Spreadsheet (default)".  So I click on "OK".  Then an error pops up stating "Cannot change the document C:\User...\*.xlr.  The document is read-only or is open by another user or application.  To change this file, save it with a different filename."  Then I click on "OK" and the *.xlr (MS Works Spreadsheet) opens up just fine.  How can I get the .xlr to open without the error appearing?

Expected Results:  
When I went into Attachments/Options.  It does not have a file extension .xlr.  It does have a file extenstion of .xls.  Can *.xlr and other MS Works software extenstions been included?

Comment 1

[rsx11m]

It appears that the key message here is "The document is read-only" which is what Thunderbird 3.x is now doing by default. The workaround is to disable the browser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit preference setting.

To do this, go into the Tools > Options > Advanced > General tab and click on Config Editor there. Copy-paste the name of the preference into the search bar on top of that window, then double-click on the remaining entry to toggle its value to "false".

If it doesn't exists already, right-click into the preference window and select New > Boolean from the menu, then set:

    * Preference name is browser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit
    * Preference value is false

This should resolve the issue if it's just caused by read-only mode. As a side effect though, opened attachments then accumulate in the %TEMP% folder.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Paul, are you still seeing a problem when using a current versoin?

Comment 3

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard