Ubuntu
thunderbird package

Thunderbird is using x-www-browser to open a link in a browser

Bug #367827 reported by Rory McCann
16
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
thunderbird (Ubuntu)
Expired
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

In System Preferences Prefered Applications I have set Firefox as my default webbrowser. However after upgrading to jaunty x-www-browser is now launching epiphany. In intrepid it would launch firefox. Since upgrading to jaunty, I haven't changed the prefered applictaions nor done anything with update-alternatives.

Rory McCann (rorymcc)
tags: added: jaunty regression
Revision history for this message
Trochee (trochee) wrote :

I have the same effect on upgrade to Jaunty. I don't know which package is broken, but it looks like the Preferred Applications menu is not properly updating /etc/alternatives. Though I set firefox to browse web pages Preferred Applications, /etc/alternatives points to epiphany.

Workaround:

sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser
[pick firefox]

but this isn't a fix; this is just a workaround; the auto setting gets it wrong.

I can't tell what package this belongs to, either, but I suspect it's whoever owns the System|Preferences|Preferred Applications dialog.

Changed in ubuntu:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Trochee (trochee) wrote :

... and this bug has re-appeared on upgrading to Karmic again.

I discovered this because thunderbird started opening web pages with epiphany; I was able to trace this issue back to x-www-browser.

The workaround I provided in April works again, but again -- not a fix.

tags: added: karmic
Revision history for this message
Sense Egbert Hofstede (sense) wrote :

Thank you for helping with making Ubuntu better by reporting this bug.
The issue you've reported is because of the fact that Epiphany gives itself a lot higher priority than Firefox or other browsers. Whereas Firefox has got a priority of 40, Epiphany has got a priority of 85. By default update-alternatives is in the automatic mode, which means that the application with the highest priority is selected as the alternative.
During the upgrade the alternatives file must have been reset. You could file another bug against 'dpkg' -- the provider of update-alternatives -- for that, because I would suggest to let this bug be about:

making the updates-alternative priority of Firefox higher than Epiphany's priority.

affects: ubuntu → firefox-3.5 (Ubuntu)
Changed in firefox-3.5 (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: Confirmed → Triaged
summary: - x-www-browser is launching epiphany even if I have firefox selected as
- my preferred web browser
+ Raise Firefox update-alternative priority for x-www-browser in order to
+ overrule Epiphany
Revision history for this message
Micah Gersten (micahg) wrote : Re: Raise Firefox update-alternative priority for x-www-browser in order to overrule Epiphany

Moving this to Thunderbird as it's the one opening the browser. Do you have thunderbird-gnome-support installed?

affects: firefox-3.5 (Ubuntu) → thunderbird (Ubuntu)
Changed in thunderbird (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Incomplete
summary: - Raise Firefox update-alternative priority for x-www-browser in order to
- overrule Epiphany
+ Thunderbird is using x-www-browser to open a link in a browser
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for thunderbird (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in thunderbird (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
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