Clicking URLs in Thunderbird broken? [solved]

danomac · Last edited by danomac on Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:13 am; edited 1 time in total

For the life of me I can't get Thunderbird to open a URL when I click on it. It just does nothing.

I've looked around in the preference trying to figure out if I need to associate it with something, but I don't really see anything relevant.

Anyone have any ideas?

NathanZachary · Moderator Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2605

The easiest solution is to open up /home/YOUR_USER_NAME/.thunderbird/PROFILE_NAME.default/prefs.js and add these three lines:

jettjunker · Apprentice Joined: 10 Sep 2005 Posts: 267

Or, with thunderbird running in Edit -> Preferences -> General(tab) -> Config Editor(button), then right-click add new string. The name would be network.protocol-handler.app.ftp , and the string value firefox (I have /usr/bin/firefox , but I don't know if that's necessary)

Also, this problem is often simply from not having the default browser set properly. For gnome, system -> preferences -> preferred applications... for others, I don't know, but I'm sure you can find it.
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NathanZachary · Moderator Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2605

This is true. Within KDE, you would go to:

Control Center --> Components --> Component Chooser --> Web Browser
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danomac · Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:13 am Post subject:

Thanks guys!

The system default is set correctly in KDE, as xchat opens in firefox just fine.

Weirdly enough, those three weren't in my config at all... how weird. I manually put them in, and now it's all good.

NathanZachary · Moderator Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2605

Those three lines weren't in my default prefs.js either. I think it might have something to do with the order in which Thunderbird and Firefox are merged, and subsequently set as defaults in the desktop environment. Either way, glad it fixed your problem.

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Aries97 · n00b Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 63

The two methods above; given by kalos and jettjunker; both worked for me.

According to the "/home/YOUR_USER_NAME/.thunderbird/PROFILE_NAME.default/prefs.js" file the preferred method is to use the Config Editor button pointed out by jettjunker.

I want to point out two things that caused me confusion when fixing this issue on my computer:

Looking at the prefs.js file one might think that you can edit the file by opening "about:config" in your web browser. If you are using a mozilla browser this will open a config file; but it's the config file for the web browser, not Thunderbird. If you don't want to edit the "prefs.js" file directly you have to use the "Config Editor" button from Thunderbird.

Also, to find the button, you have to be in the advanced section of the "Thunderbird Preferences" window: With Thunderbird v2.0.0.21: First drop down the "Edit" toolbar entry, then select "Preferences", this will open the "Thunderbird Preferences" window, select the "Advanced" icon on the top right; then the "General" tab, there at the bottom you will then see an "Advanced Configuration" option with a button "Config Editor..."

One more thing; if you are using XFCE you may want to put "exo-open" in instead of "firefox" in order to not break the XFCE prefered applications system. I'm guessing there is an analog for Gnome and KDE, not sure what it is though:

cazort · Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:15 pm Post subject:

I just ran into this problem and this fix worked for me...how can we get this so it is set up properly by default? Is this a bug in thunderbird, or a bug in gentoo?

BTW I emerged firefox first and then thunderbird, and still ran into this problem. It seems to respect the system default if you use gnome, but not KDE (which is what I'm using).
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zfc-tinkerer · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 126

watch out for the value of network.protocol-handler.external.http

In my install, this was set to false, and as soon as I changed it, things worked again. I would guess that what is needed it to have this value set to true, and then use one of the several other fixes.

alex.blackbit · Advocate Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 2397

on my main workstation i was unable to get link opening with firefox working since about 1 year.
a few minutes ago i emerged thunderbird-3. it works now.

alex.blackbit · Advocate Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 2397

today the error came back.
i don't know what happened and i am as frustrated as before.

HTS · Guru Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 410 Location: Bristol, UK

I had the same problem for a while, none of the prefs,js things seem to work for me and my default browser is properly set in KDE (can open links from Konsole etc.).
What I had missed was that I also have Gnome installed.

If like me you're running both KDE and Gnome you must set the default browser in Gnome for Thunderbird to pick that up even when running inside KDE...
Just run gnome-control-center from KDE and go to Preferred Applications and set the browser.
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