We're calling on all EU-based Mozillians with iOS or iPadOS devices to help us monitor Apple’s new browser choice screens. Join the effort to hold Big Tech to account!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was closed and archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Prevent FF from starting TB with profile manager

more options

Using "email link" feature.

Regardless of how I set the email client to be Thunderbird, either in FF or in the OS (Win 7 64bit), TB starts up in the profile manager, and because TB is already running, I am unable to compose a message in the currently-used profile. I have 3 profiles defined, and I do not want to use either of the other 2.

I observe that the OS believes that the command line for running TB (from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Mozilla Thunderbird\Protocols\mailto\shell\open\command ) is

"C:\pctools\Mozilla\Thunderbird\v38.4.0\thunderbird.exe" -osint -compose "%1"

That is the correct path on my installation.

If I manually run that command from a command window, for example:

"C:\pctools\Mozilla\Thunderbird\v38.4.0\thunderbird.exe" -osint -compose

or

"C:\pctools\Mozilla\Thunderbird\v38.4.0\thunderbird.exe" -osint -compose "body='foobar'"

then TB starts up with compose window as expected (including "foobar" in that case).

I cannot, however, without doing some surgery on the registry, determine what argument FF is sending to the OS for the "%1" argument to TB.

If I knew the latter, maybe I could fix this problem.

Or, maybe someone can tell me how to fix the problem at user level?

I recall that years ago I had a similar problem on an XP machine, but I am not sure how I fixed it. I think I may have copied an Outlook version of mapi.dll into the windows system directory. However, it appears that now TB and/or FF have their own version of mapi.dll (with a somewhat different name).

Using "email link" feature. Regardless of how I set the email client to be Thunderbird, either in FF or in the OS (Win 7 64bit), TB starts up in the profile manager, and because TB is already running, I am unable to compose a message in the currently-used profile. I have 3 profiles defined, and I do not want to use either of the other 2. I observe that the OS believes that the command line for running TB (from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Mozilla Thunderbird\Protocols\mailto\shell\open\command ) is "C:\pctools\Mozilla\Thunderbird\v38.4.0\thunderbird.exe" -osint -compose "%1" That is the correct path on my installation. If I manually run that command from a command window, for example: "C:\pctools\Mozilla\Thunderbird\v38.4.0\thunderbird.exe" -osint -compose or "C:\pctools\Mozilla\Thunderbird\v38.4.0\thunderbird.exe" -osint -compose "body='foobar'" then TB starts up with compose window as expected (including "foobar" in that case). I cannot, however, without doing some surgery on the registry, determine what argument FF is sending to the OS for the "%1" argument to TB. If I knew the latter, maybe I could fix this problem. Or, maybe someone can tell me how to fix the problem at user level? I recall that years ago I had a similar problem on an XP machine, but I am not sure how I fixed it. I think I may have copied an Outlook version of mapi.dll into the windows system directory. However, it appears that now TB and/or FF have their own version of mapi.dll (with a somewhat different name).

All Replies (3)

more options

moving to the Thunderbird queue since it involves Thunderbird more than Firefox, at least IMO

edit: and I have never used Thunderbird

Modified by the-edmeister

more options

Unfortunately, I (OP) disagree.

I am asking what FIREFOX sends as the args to TB. I have very complete documentation about what TB's args are, and I am unable to reproduce the problem manually with what I believe to be correct args for TB.

So, THIS IS A QUESTION ABOUT FIREFOX.

I will post it back again into the FF forum.

more options