[SOLVED] Opening an attachment in thunderbird does not work

[gilado]

Thunderbird 3, Firefox 3.5.6. (updated from earlier versions)

I received an email with an http link
http://www.raincitystory.com/flash/screenclean.swf

I click the link and nothing happens.
I right click the link, and the first item in the context menu is Open Link in Browser. I select this action, still nothing happens.

This used to work with tbird 2.0, it would launch the page in a browser window!

From the menu I go Edit/Preferences In account preferences, I select the Advanced tab, then click on the Config Editor button, read the message about voiding my warranty? (what warranty? this is a misrepresentation) promise to be good (no really check it out) get the about:config  options list.

I scroll to network.protocol-handler.app.http . the setting is /usr/bin/firefox , which I think is correct.

I am lost and confused (but on good behavior...)  How do I fix this?
 

[menotu]

this was posted a a few days ago about your issue.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,69920.0.html

BTW - crazy dog!! 

[gilado]

Yeah, but there isn't a coherent instructions in it.

Where's KMenu anyway? I can't find it in the menus and type kmenu in terminal does not work either

[Old-Polack]

Yeah, but there isn't a coherent instructions in it.

Where's KMenu anyway? I can't find it in the menus and type kmenu in terminal does not work either

You can't find it in the menu because it is the menu.

[gilado]

Well, there's no Configuration under More Applications.  It's under System, right?
And no Configure Your Desktop in Configuration, either? do they mean Control Center?
And where's Personal > Default Application

Also, those instructions are for setting TB as you email client and FF as you default browser, which is not the problem I have (or the original question in that thread)

Then the thread goes off on a tangent debating whether or not when a new window opens behind the current window it is a bug or a feature (It's a bug, esp. when it's a modal dialog and the currently top window stops functioning waiting for the user to click on the other window they done't even know is there)

In short I still am searching for a menu where one can set attachment associations in TB.

[gilado]

And I'm not alone.  Google search for thunderbird "you have chosen" "from:mailbox"
Turns out quite a few postings with this problem.  There are two kind of reports:

- TB (any version)  had worked fine, until one day it stopped opening attachments

- Everything worked fine in TB2 but after upgrade TB3 won't open attachments

I have two machines that I have upgraded, one belongs to the first group, the other to the second group.

Some of these postings date back to 2005. They also are not Linux specific.

My guess is TB at some point has clobberred on of its config/settings files, can't parse it anymore.
When you click an attachment it "wisely" provides info like this to the user:

You have chosen to open
letter.doc
which is Word Document
from mailbox://
Would you like to save this file?
<cancel button>
<save file button (disabled)>

Yes, the save button is grayed out so you can not actually save

If instead you right click and choose Save As you can save it.

However for some other document (text file) it show a dialog where I can choose an application to open the document, or specify a new application.  I enter /usr/bin/kwrite and then get a dialog saying:

Error - KWrite
klauncher said: Unknown protocol 'mailbox'

You'd think the later problem is an indication that the document wasn't attached properly...  I created this email message in same TB used TB to attach the file and mailed it to myself.

Moreover, I used a third machine still running TB2 to retrieve  the same email from the mail server and the attachment opened in kwrite no problem.

Any ideas how to fix (short of reinstalling TB2) would be greatly appreciated

[gilado]

So I thought  perhpas my preexisting setting form TB2 are incompatible somehow.

Removed (saved elsewhere)  .thunderbird , started TB3, created new account, downloaded my email, including the one with the text attachment that would not open.  Interestingly enough, when display attachments inline is checked, TB3 correctly displays the attachment inline. When I double click, I get the choose application, choose /usr/bin/kwrite. It still does not work as shown in my previous postings.

Restored .tunderbird, untarred thunderbird-2.0.0.23.tar.gz in my home directory, edited the taksbar icon to point to
~/thunderbird/thunderbird

All is working now.  Life's good.