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I'm on Ubuntu 16.04, Chrome Version 62.0.3202.94 (Official Build) (64-bit), Thunderbird 52.4.0 (64-bit).

I'm having a problem with Chrome that only happens when I click on a link within Thunderbird. If the browser is already started up, everything works fine. If the browser is not already running, it appears that Chrome is opening - the Chrome icon lights up on the launcher - but the page never shows up. This is what I've tested so far:

  • Disabled all plugins, extensions, etc. in both Thunderbird and Chrome.
  • Links open fine from other apps - LibreOffice docs, Cherry Tree, etc.
  • If I set Firefox as the default browser, that works fine whether or not Firefox is running when I click the link.
  • I have two different profiles in Thunderbird; the problem is the same regardless of which profile I load at startup.

Please note that this is not a problem with the default/preferred browser; it has only to do with whether Chrome is already open or not when a link is clicked in Thunderbird.

Even though this is not actually a preferred browser issue, I tried all the various suggestions I could find related to problems with the correct browser launching for Thunderbird links; none of them made any difference. In all cases, the settings worked as they should if Chrome was already open when I clicked the link, and didn't work if it wasn't open:

  • Changing network.protocol-handler.warn-external.http & .https to true, and then manually choosing Chrome when prompted to pick app to open link
  • adding a user.js file specifying the browser to use
  • Specifying Chrome as the app for http and https in Incoming Attachments

I'm at a loss. I would be very grateful if anyone has any suggestions for how to troubleshoot this further.

LSharkey
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1 Answers1

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I was unable to ever find the cause of this problem, but I was able to resolve it. Incidentally, I upgraded from 16.04 to 17.04 (for unrelated reasons), and that had no effect on the problem.

This is the process I followed; even though it didn't provide an answer for what was wrong, I am including here in case it helps anyone else who needs to troubleshoot a similar problem:

  • Made copies of both of my Thunderbird profiles.
  • Purged Chrome and Thunderbird ($ sudo apt-get purge google-chrome* and $ sudo apt-get purge thunderbird)
  • Re-installed Chrome first; because of the prevalence of reported problems with Thunderbird recognizing Chrome as the default browser, I wanted to make sure Chrome was installed and set as default before installing Thunderbird. I used the install process described in AskUbuntu question 510056 (the first answer, written by Pandya; even though it is several years old, it is still applicable).
  • Re-installed Thunderbird ($ sudo apt-get install thunderbird).
  • Tested using default profile, configured only enough to allow me to access an email to test with. Test was successful; link from email opened in Chrome, without Chrome running beforehand.
  • Copied one of my old profiles over default. Test was successful, indicating that this profile was not the cause of the problem.
  • Used profile manager ($ thunderbird -ProfileManager) to create a new profile, and copied my second old profile over it. Tested using second profile. This test was also successful, indicating that neither profile was the source of the orignial problem.
  • Renamed profiles to same as they were before, and copied the old Thunderbird profiles.ini over the new one. Test was successful, indicating there was nothing amiss with the profiles.ini.
  • Re-enabled all my original extensions and plug-ins in Chrome. Test was successful.

So the only conclusion I can come to is that there was something amiss with the Thunderbird installation, and that the re-install resolved the issue. Fortunately, being able to easily save and replace the profiles made re-install relatively painless.

LSharkey
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