Link will not work in Thunderbird.

pete39 · 27 May 2014

A similar problem to frodo23’s post but somewhat different though.

I have a problem with a Thunderbird installation on Win 7.

For a gift my 13 year old grandson is receiving a used laptop, I am the administrator and he is the second standard user.

I am having trouble with Thunderbird with regard to clinking on a url link within an email, the link page will not load, Internet Explorer 11 does not respond at all.
Normally when clicking on a blue link it goes red and the page then appears, in this case it goes red and then quickly back to blue again, nothing. If I try to copy and paste the link to put it in the address bar it goes grey instead of being highlighted in blue and will not paste.
At the bottom of the Thunderbird page is the error massage ‘The action can’t be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program.
Close the folder of file and try again. User.’
To my knowledge it is not open in another program.

I have tried installing and uninstalling Thunderbird many times but this problem still persists.
As a test I also installed my Grandson’s Thunderbird email account on my Admin account and there is no problem whatsoever.

For the time being his account is also installed on his Grandmother’s laptop with no problem, again as the second user.

Any ideas please, Pete.

Not Myself · 27 May 2014

Connection between Thunderbird and a browser is not controlled by TB, so reinstalling the program will have no effect other than to waste your time. Links are controlled by Windows: Go into Control Panel/Default Programs, and determine which, if any, browser is set as the default; do this as a frist step in diagnosing the problem..

pete39 · 27 May 2014

Both accounts had already been checked for default settings, just checked again and they still are.
Don't forget when I install TB on my account there isn't a problem.

Not Myself · 27 May 2014

pete39 said:

Both accounts had already been checked for default settings, just checked again and they still are.
Don't forget when I install TB on my account there isn't a problem.

I think you need to track down the error message, which I rather overlooked writing about in my first reply. I have no good idea as to what the folder referred to means; perhaps you have Tb running in both accounts at the same time, so check that.

Another, but quite unlikely cause is that IE is not set to alllow the boy's Windows account to use it--and I have not the slightest idea how that could happen, it is just a truly scientific wild guess.

I rarely use IE, so don't know if it has a "mail to" feature; if so, you might try clicking on a web page and seeing if that takes you to TB. This works in Firefox, albeit the feature was removed nodt long ago, so now i have to use a Fx extension to restore the ability to easily send a URL from Fx
to a new message in Tb.

I'm sorry that I can not come up with a simple solution for you, but if you will see what you can find based on this reply and post your findings, then perhaps I can delve further into figuring out what is the cause and solution.

pete39 · 28 May 2014

Thanks for you reply NM

I have had both accounts running at the same time, my admin account works okay but the other account is still a problem.
Another thing I have tried is installing Firefox alongside IE, unfortunately the problem continues and still the link does not find Firefox.

Not Myself · 28 May 2014

You cannot do proper troubleshooting if you don't first eliminate all variables, such as having two installations of Tb running at the same time, and installing another browser.

Here is the standard diagnostics document:

Standard diagnostic - Thunderbird - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Not Myself · 29 May 2014

Here is a possible, albeit very strange, way to fix the problem:

Can't open hyperlinks from TB ? mozillaZine Forums

I have no idea whatsoever as to why this worked, I have never seen the suggested test method proposed, I offer no guarantees, nor will I refund your money for this free link.

pete39 · 29 May 2014

Problem over.

I took some ideas from your suggested Standard Diagnostic link, but instead I deleted every single Thunderbird folder I could find and that was it, normal service has been resumed and at no cost! :)

Thanks NM.