Problem opening Firefox from links in Thunderbird

For those who may think the subject sounds familiar, let me start by saying that this is not the problem discussed in post# 58121, where I was completely unable to open FF from links in TB on my laptop computer.

I have two computers, a desktop and a laptop, with FF 2.0 and TB 1.5.0.7 the default browser and email client on each. Each program is configured the same on the two computers, using the default theme, and exactly the same extensions.

FF and TB should work with each other as follows:

1. If FF is not open when a link is clicked in an email message, FF should open and display the linked webpage.

2. If FF is already open when a link is clicked in an email message, the linked page should be displayed.​

There is no problem on the laptop computer but, on the desktop, only #1 works as it should ... in the case of #2, when I click on a link in a message I get the message shown in the attached screenshot.

I have tried everything I can think of to resolve this annoyance, without success. I have tried:

Copying the TB and FF 2.0 profiles from the laptop to the desktop computer.

Uninstalling FF and cleaning the registry of all references to it before reinstalling it.

Uninstalling all extensions. (Ironically, the problem does not occur if FF is run in Safe Mode.)

Comparing about:config, line by line, on the two computers.

Posting messages in the Mozillazine forums, with no response.​

This is more of an annoyance than a real problem, but I've tried everything I can think of, and I'd really like to find an answer. Ramona? Anyone?

 

Jim,

As you know, the error message indicates that your Profile is locked, or another application is using the Profile. This KB Article gives several workarounds:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

Have you tried everything the KB lists? If not give it a whirl and see if anything there might unlock your Profile.

The fact that TB runs in Safe Mode with all extensions uninstalled indicates that it is an extension. At least that's what Mozilla tells us in the above KB Article.

Did you check your profiles.ini file to ensure the path is correct, especially in view of the face that your have your Profile on a partitioned drive, and that it contains IsRelative=0?


https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278860

 

Sorry JSS3rd, do not have any solid suggestion.
My question .... if FF is open and you click on a URL in TB, is their a possible TB is sending the wrong command. When this command is sent, how is the command syntax presented ???
Below in non-programmer - Don't have clue how they do / or write it - but this would be the the gist of the command I am concerned about ...
OPEN browser - then open URL
IF browser OPEN (skip) - then open URL.
It would appear this is broken. Possible in TB?
Hope I did not confuse everyone in what I am trying to communicate.

 

Dennis,

You're definitely on the right track, as this is a well known bug in both Firefox and Thunderbird, which has been around for quite some time, but not yet fixed. It's seen more often in Fx than in TB.

 

Working ...

Yes and, initially, "same old same old ". Then, for reasons unknown, the problem resolved itself. Working OK, now, yet I didn't change a thing; or, if I did, I returned things to their original state.

I think you may have misunderstood me, Ramona. Even with all extensions uninstalled, the problem remained. Only when I ran FF in Safe Mode did it work properly. That led me to believe that it wasn't an extension problem, especially since I have the identical configuration on the laptop.

That was one of the first things I checked.

 

Come on Jim, tell us how you got it working again...

 

What I meant was that I was working on the solution, not that I had it working properly. Last time I tried, though, everything was OK.

 

Thanks Jim,

You were evidently editing your Reply and I failed to see it when I posted. Whatever it was, I'm glad to see that your Mail is working as it should!

 

Arrgghh! It just started doing it again!

 

Jim

I think the next logical thing is the next progression of Dennis's post. That is to make a clean install of TB and, failing that, go to new TB profile.

 

Thanks for the input, Bill. After my last post, when things had gone back to square 1, I had to leave for about four hours, and left my computer on. When I returned, I found that the darn thing had fixed itself again. Must be Halloween goblins at work.

 

And the answer is (or seems to be) ...

I was about to post the following when the proverbial lightbulb suddenly appeared above my head.

Lewis Carroll's Alice may have said it best when she cried, "Curiouser and curiouser! ", although the King in The King and I had a pretty good take on it, also ... "Is a puzzlement!"

I've discovered that, if FF is initially opened from a link in an email, other email links will open in that same FF window, on new tabs.

If, however, FF is initially opened from a shortcut, I get the "error" message seen in the screenshot attached to post #1.​

Because my problem seemed to be related to the shortcut I always use, to confirm that fact, I double-clicked the FF executable, itself, to open FF. Lo and behold, email links now opened their webpages as they should.

To make a long story even longer, until recently I was using all three versions of FF and, because I wanted to see them open at the same time to compare them, I was using the moz-no-remote environment variable (otherwise, if 1.5 were open and I clicked on the shortcut for 2.0, a new 1.5 window would open, instead). When I decided to use 2.0 full-time, I neglected to remove "-no-remote" from the target string in the shortcut's properties.

End of story. I can no longer open different versions of FF at the same time, but my email links now work the way they're supposed to. Whew!