Thunderbird Can't open links.

[Robtygart]

Using Thunderbird in both 12.04 and 12.10, when there is a link in a message, it will not open the browser. At first it made me choose so /usr/share/Applications/Firefox.desktop but when I click nothing happens.

I am sure its just a setting.

[ntuple]

Having same problem. Have set default browser for system and changed action in thunderbird for attachments for http to default browser but still won't work.

Also edited syspref.js in thunderbird folder to show
-- user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop");

This shows Firefox as the default to handle http in thunderbird but doesn;t actually make it act accordingly.

[vinnywright]

Using Thunderbird in both 12.04 and 12.10, when there is a link in a message, it will not open the browser. At first it made me choose so /usr/share/Applications/Firefox.desktop but when I click nothing happens.

I am sure its just a setting.

try changing to /usr/bin/firefox see if that works,,,,,,,I dont use Tbird so can't test

VINNY

[Snowhog]

See Re: Getting Thunderbird to open links with Chromium

Don't worry about the title. If you are using Firefox as the default browser, it should work.

[Robtygart]

@Vinnie At first it asked me what to choose I said /usr/share/applications/Firefox.Desktop. Now I don't get that message any more, I would like to get it again to choose another application.

[Qqmike]

Hmmm, this is usually a problem for me, but on 12.04, it went easily without editing config files.

I've done only these things to set it up so it works:

Install Firefox through 12.04 (the repos).

Check this:
K > Computer > System Settings > Default Applications
In the left panel of choices, select
Web browser
Then: Open http and https URLs in the following browser:
firefox
(and that's how I typed it in the window, just this: firefox)

btw, in that same Default Applications panel. you can set T-Bird as default:
Email Client -->
Use a different email client:
thunderbird %u

Next,
In Firefox,
Edit > Preference > Advanced, Check to see if FX is default browser.
That is,
System defaults:
Check mark on this: Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup

That's all it took this time (12.04). (In 8.04.3, there was all the manual editing of config files and such.)

[Robtygart]

None of that works. I even tried to

sudo apt-get purge thunderbird

and start fresh but when I reinstalled it popped up with all my account info intact.

[Robtygart]

Ok I know how to fix it........


Open Thunderbird
Edit>Preferences>Attachments>Incoming

Do you see anything in there that suggests a browser, click it and click "Delete Action" Or Change the path to usr/bin/firefox as Vinny said.

I deleted it and now it just opens with Firefox. (My default browser)

[Qqmike]

Robtygart:
Edit>Preferences>Attachments>Incoming
Do you see anything in there that suggests a browser, click it and click "Delete Action" Or Change the path to usr/bin/firefox as Vinny said.

Interesting. I have nothing in there that suggests a browser. So that part was ready to go for me (i.e., not interfering); yet I had to do the two things I posted above to get it to work right--those two settings were not ready to go (after a fresh install of T-Bird).
(12.04 and T-Bird 16.0.1)

[Robtygart]

Is there anything at all in there?

[Qqmike]

Edit>Preferences>Attachments>Incoming

Under Content Type is
skype
(and Action is Use Skype)
as I recently installed Skype, so that makes sense.

At the bottom is checked
Save files to Desktop

That's it.

[luckyone]

From another site:

Edit> Preferences> Advanced tab> Config Editor

Search on 'http' and look for 'network.protocol-handler.app'. Edit the values to point to Firefox. Here's mine for reference:

network.protocol-handler.app.http user set string /usr/bin/firefox
network.protocol-handler.app.https user set string /usr/bin/firefox

You can do the same thing for 'ftp'.

You may need to change mozilla-firefox to firefox. And do the File Associations thing also.

[Qqmike]

Since we are re-visiting this popular topic (it's a common issue), let's toss in this troubleshooting guide:

Hyperlinks in Messages Not Working
https://support.mozillamessaging.com...n+browser&as=s


(I've used the Mozilla site with successful results in the past. But this time, as I said above, configuring this was almost automatic for me this time (12.04); i.e., no need to edit config files.)

[ntuple]

Pointing to usr/bin/firefox rather than the desktop icon of firefox did it for me.