Mailto links in Chromium will not open Thunderbird

[rdh61]

Hi,

Lubuntu 12.04.

The title says it all: mailto links in Chromium will not open Thunderbird.

When I click the links nothing happens. My default email client is Thunderbird.

Any ideas?

Many thanks.

[Rex Bouwense]

Sorry that you are unhappy, but this is a very small volunteer forum. Those people that give of their time do so without renumeration. We have been hit with a great deal of Spam lately and it is all that we can do to eliminate it. It would help if you provided more information. Just saying that something doesn't work doesn't really describe the situation. Good luck.

[edward]

Once Thunderbird is set as the default e-mail program on your system, the mailto: links should then open Thunderbird.

[rdh61]

@ edward, quite: "should" is the operative word. But they don't!

This issue persists, now on a different machine with freshly installed Lubuntu 12.04, Chromium version 25.0.1364.160, Thunderbird 17.0.4.

@ Rex Bouwense, sorry I threw out my toys. You're right of course. What further info can I provide to help you help me?

[Rex Bouwense]

Hey your back. Welcome. Perhaps we can provide you with a solution to your problem this time. As edward has pointed out this should be automatic so first a couple of simple checks to make sure that we don't go off the deep end and make changes that are not needed. Go to menu->Preferences->Preferred Applications and check that your default browser and default mail client are indeed Chromium and Thunderbird respectively. Once that is done and Thunderbird fails to open after clicking on mail to in Chromium, I would go to Launchpad and read the bug report here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1019259
Apparently, there has been a bug reported and looking at previous sites it may have been around for a while because I found references (in a Googlubuntu search dating back to 2011). There is also a patch proposed in Launchpad. I do not use Chromium or Google Chrome. My browser of choice is and has been Firefox for ages. I know, it is bloated but I like it and have become very comfortable with it and it's capabilities so I cannot confirm if this patch will do what you want it to do but you can always try it and post back. I would also sign in to Launchpad and report that the bug also applies to you. The more people that report it the greater the chance of it being fixed. Since Chromium is installed as the default browser, it ought to work.

[rdh61]

Chromium and Thunderbird were set as my default applications.

I was unclear how to use the patch in the bug report, but I figured it out, so I'll write it down here for my and others' future reference:
1. As sudo open /usr/bin/xdg-email.
2. Search for and comment out the lines marked "-" in the patch.
3. Under these insert the substitute lines marked "+" in the patch.

This works.

Thank you for pointing the way.

[Rex Bouwense]

Glad to be of help. Please stick around provide any assistance that you can. As I have said before we are a small forum with even less active members and can use all the help that we can get.