Thunderbird 5 trouble with links in e-mail

**wesran** · 2011-07-02 05:09

Having numerous problems trying to set up preferences in the new updated Thunderbird v5 but the most pressing is the ability to open links in newsletters and even the help topic won't open. At first I thought my firewall(pctools) was blocking it but have set that to allow. Need some help so thanks to all contributors.

**Roderunner** · 2011-07-02 07:06

Hi wesran, are your browser & thunderbird set as default ?

**wesran** · 2011-07-02 17:29

Yes both Firefox and Thunderbird are set as default.

**wesran** · 2011-07-03 01:27

While experimenting removed pc firewall and was able to open links so will try a different firewall.

**Roderunner** · 2011-07-03 01:45

Hi wesran, if you have a router with a built-in NAT Firewall, Win7 FW will be your best bet.

**crosstraxcmi** · 2011-07-14 08:04

I have had the same problem for quite a while as well. If you click the link, browser opens but does not open the link. If you click the link again, it will then open in the browser.... no fix found

**garysaiken** · 2011-07-14 11:13

After my TB v5 upgrade, my links took about a minute to open (using Firefox). Then I noticed my external backup hard drive was online. I shutdown, turned the external drive off, and rebooted. Links in TB now work fine.

Go figure.

**marklang** · 2011-07-14 11:17

Not sure if this will help, but you might try temporarily removing any plugins you have installed in Thunderbird. I am working with the vendor on an antispam plugin I use that is very effective (Cloudmark), and they told me not to upgrade to TB 5 because it breaks their plugin toolbar. So Mozilla must have changed those interfaces.

**Paul T** · 2011-07-15 11:56

FWIW, I have no trouble with links opening. TB 5 & FF 5.

cheers, Paul

**packrat1** · 2011-07-15 22:51

This is my first post - if I'm doing it wrong please let me know.

Anyway, I had the same problem-suddenly, URLs from Thunderbird would not open in Firefox. A google search of the problem shows that a lot of people were having the same problem along with lots of complicated suggestions. I finally ran across a suggestion (that I cannot relocate) that helped me resolve the problem. Some of the specifics are missing but maybe someone can fill in the blanks or better explain the process. It goes something like this:

1. Open Firefox and enter about:config as the URL.
2. Enter mailto in the Filter box.
3. In the resulting list, I found several lines similar to
"gecko.handlerService.schemes.mailto.0.name default string Yahoo! Mail"
"gecko.handlerService.schemes.mailto.0.uriTemp late default string http://compose.mail.yahoo.com/?To=%s"
and several google.toolbar and network.protocol related lines.
4. Above these lines were some entries that appear to have been added by a Nuance indexing program installed as part of an install of OmniPage 18 Professional.
5. I removed (after a cut and paste into a Notepad document for possible reuse), by right-clicking, on all of the entries not gecko, google or network related that didn't look right.
6. I closed Firefox, made sure it was my default browser and restarted Firefox.
7. Problem solved.

I realize this solution is a bit disjointed but I'm hoping someone understands what I did and can explain it a bit more elegantly.

**Paul T** · 2011-07-16 01:21

I wonder if step 6 was the solution?

cheers, Paul

**wesran** · 2011-07-17 04:16

Thanks for all the suggestions. Since removing PC firewall have had no further problems. Might add that could not find a setting in PC firewall that would allow it.

**oliverrp** · 2012-01-26 00:32

I'm having the same problem with Google Chrome. IE9 is no problem, but if Chrome is default, links will not work.

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