Subject: From where besides Default Programs, and besides under Options, Advanced, Config Editor, is ThunderbirdPortable finding FirefoxPortable?
This is about Thunderbird 45.3.0, not Firefox. Just so you know, I asked this first of Mozilla and was told in full: "Thunderbird passes the hyperlink to the operating system to the default handler (Browser) anything else is portable apps magic." So here I am at the magical PortableApps. 
I have had a habit of changing the name of my FirefoxPortable folder to include the version number whenever I download a FirefoxPortable update, just to preserve some prior versions in case of need. Of course then I have changed the path where Thunderbird should look to find my current version of Firefox. I *must have* been doing something to change where Thunderbird was looking to open a browser upon clicking a hyperlink. I have lost track of that somehow, possibly due to changes in Thunderbird or due to changing from Windows XP to Windows 7.
I have just ended up having to install my updated version of Firefox into a folder named "FirefoxPortableESR 17-0-9" to get it to work, because that is where my Thunderbird is looking for it. I cannot find the setting, and setting network.protocol-handler.app.http and network.protocol-handler.app.https in Options, Advanced, Config Editor to the current Value has no effect at all. I also have network.protocol-handler.warn-external.http and network.protocol-handler.warn-external.https both set to "True."
As I said above, hyperlinks in Thunderbird are working, but just for the sake of aesthetics if nothing else I would like to have them work with my newer Firefox version located in a folder other than "FirefoxbakPortableESR 17-0-9".
I hope someone knows where I can access something in Thunderbird 45.3.0 to fix that.
Thank you!
Larry Scott
P.S. I have only a tiny income now that I have long been retired, but I *will* contribute to PortableApps as I can! I made a small contribution just now. May PortableApps never die at least until after I am dead. I am not looking for that to happen soon, just so you know. Thank you all again for making my life easier!
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From where besides Default Programs and besides under Options, Advanced, Config Editor, is ThunderbirdPortable finding FirefoxP?
September 5, 2016 - 8:21pm
#1
From where besides Default Programs and besides under Options, Advanced, Config Editor, is ThunderbirdPortable finding FirefoxP?
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If you have network.protocol-handler.external-default set to false, I recall that Thunderbird tracks opening things internally. You can search for firefox in your about:config editor in Thunderbird to find the setting where it is set to open Firefox. You can also manually open your prefs.js file within Data\profile to locate the entry.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I got excited when I saw that network.protocol-handler.external-default was set to "true." I had also checked looking in prefs.js with my text editor and had seen that indeed the path to the new Firefox location looked perfect, already set, as I said earlier, both on the line with network.protocol-handler.app.http and on the line with network.protocol-handler.app.https .
But: Changing network.protocol-handler.external-default to "false" using Options, Advanced, Config Editor only disabled Thunderbird from finding Firefox at all, in either the new location or the obsolete location.
So I've changed that setting back to "true," and Thunderbird is again linking, in some mysterious way, to the newer Firefox installed in the obsolete location. Both the new and the old locations are on the same external drive. I have no idea where Thunderbird is finding a pointer to FirefoxPortableESR 17-0-9\FirefoxPortable.exe, but it *is* finding that somewhere somehow! Again, that is *not* what is shown in Thunderbird's prefs.js!
If you have any other thought, I would appreciate your sharing it.
Thank you again for everything, even if this problem might just be too mysterious. Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo.
L Scott
If you have it set to true, that means it passes it to the OS and does nothing internally to determine where it is. So, at some point you set Firefox Portable in that specific path as your system default.
When set to false, I think it gets it from Content now (not from prefs.js as it used to) which is in its own sqlite db. I think it's accessible within "attachments" IIRC (not sure as it has changed a few times over the years). A Mozilla article on fixing it appears to indicate this as well: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Hyperlinks-in-Messages-Not-Working#...
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
1. The default htm file association in this Windows 7 computer is a standard version of the GoogleChrome browser. As I do not own this particular machine, I have avoided messing with it. The owner might want that to work. But I have checked it once again. It still says Google Chrome. Htm/html files are shown with GoogleChrome icons, and clicking on one of them does start the GoogleChrome browser standard install.
It has come to me that I did once have a standard install of Firefox in this computer for a very short time. I do not know what version it was. A standard install would not have used a folder under Programs with name that included the version number, whatever it was. The sole purpose of that temporary installation was to enable the complex process of transferring years of bookmarks from FirefoxPortable to Firefox standard and then on to GoogleChromePortable, as an experiment for myself and my wife. I then removed the standard Firefox install properly, using Add/Remove programs. I do not believe that I ever used that with any version of Thunderbird. I did not install that standard Firefox for the purpose of using it. And we did not enjoy Google Chrome much, so it was back to FirefoxPortable, which we do enjoy, particularly for the low memory usage with multiple open tabs. I did just find a lost Firefox profile under Application Data under a user on Drive C:. I renamed the Mozilla folder there to lose it. That had no effect. With all of these experiments, I have toggled network.protocol-handler.external-default from true to false and back so many times I have lost count.
2. There is no listing for htm or html files under Attachments in ThunderbirdPortable.
3. Running Thunderbird in Safe Mode as suggested in the article you cited makes no change in its behavior in going to the obsolete FirefoxPortableESR 17-0-9\FirefoxPortable.exe location with network.protocol-handler.external-default set to true. It does nothing at all--goes nowhere upon clicking a link in other words--with network.protocol-handler.external-default set to false despite the fact of the proper (newer) FirefoxPortable location remaining unchanged in the proper about:config entries. Anyway, the only extension installed is the new Lightening 4.7.3 for the new integrated calendar feature. That was disabled in Safe Mode. I have no Plugins enabled in Thunderbird, not even Adobe Acrobat.
4. In accord with the article you cited, I changed network.protocol-handler.warn-external.ftp to true also, which I had not seen in the directions that I followed initially to try to solve this. Anyway, that did not help.
5. Thinking that you might have pointed to the content-prefs.sqlite file by what you said about a content location, I simply moved that file out of the Data/profile subfolder temporarily. Having a full backup engenders some confidence. :-7 That had no effect on the problem when I restarted Thunderbird. Thunderbird did not create a new file with that name as I had thought it might, so the original content-prefs.sqlite file is now back in place, again with no effect. Actually, according to this, the function of that file does not seem applicable. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_folders_in_the_profile_-_Thunderbird
6. Mozilla has already informed me that they are helpless, as I mentioned initially.
I am afraid that I might be about to lose interest in fixing this problem unless you can think of something more to try that is easy.
By the way, I have not mentioned the fact, but I have the same phenomenon going on in another installation that I have maintained via Teamviewer with a flashdrive plugged into a distant computer.for my wife since January 2013. I am quite sure that I had had that Thunderbird working with Firefox located in a folder named FirefoxESR 38.4.0 on that other flashdrive. Having gotten that flashdrive back here now temporarily and plugged to this same machine, I just jumped the Thunderbird on that from 20 something up to 45.3.0. I did not change the FirefoxPortable installation. But now the ThunderbirdPortable on that other flash drive points to the obsolete FirefoxPortableESR 17-0-9\FirefoxPortable.exe location also on that other flashdrive, plugged in with a different drive letter than the one I use with my own portable applications. If there is some connection between the problem and the operating system on this computer, I do not know what it might be.
Thank you once again for all of your fine work here.
L Scott