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Can't open attachments when using Thunderbird under Fedora Silverblue

  • 9 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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When running TB under Fedora Silverblue I can't open or save any attachments. Clicking on the attachment brings up a dialog asking if I'd like to open the file using System Handler. Clicking OK does nothing. If I select the alternate application drop down I get a choice of Help or Thunderbird, even though I have the required aps installed (Videos and VLC for mp4, Libreoffice for csv, which is the only two I've tried). I also cannot save the file anywhere. If I click Save I get a dialog asking me where to save the file, I select a directory (i.e. /home/Videos) and click Save, but then a dialog is displayed saying "Unable to save the attachment, please check your file name and try again later." I click OK on that dialog and another pops up saying "Unable to save the message. Please check your file name and try again later."

Is there a fix or workaround for this problem? Thanks, Ian

When running TB under Fedora Silverblue I can't open or save any attachments. Clicking on the attachment brings up a dialog asking if I'd like to open the file using System Handler. Clicking OK does nothing. If I select the alternate application drop down I get a choice of Help or Thunderbird, even though I have the required aps installed (Videos and VLC for mp4, Libreoffice for csv, which is the only two I've tried). I also cannot save the file anywhere. If I click Save I get a dialog asking me where to save the file, I select a directory (i.e. /home/Videos) and click Save, but then a dialog is displayed saying "Unable to save the attachment, please check your file name and try again later." I click OK on that dialog and another pops up saying "Unable to save the message. Please check your file name and try again later." Is there a fix or workaround for this problem? Thanks, Ian

All Replies (9)

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Well maybe it's not a TB problem. Silverblue just did an upgrade and now I can save attachments. I still can't open them directly from TB, but half the problem has been solved. I think I can safely call this issue closed, if not completely solved. It seems to be a Silverblue issue. I'll wait for the next update and see what happens then.

-)
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Could you try this and tell me if it fixes the opening issue. Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General click on 'config editor' button set 'mail.server.default.mime_parts_on_demand' to 'false'. double click online will toggle the value from True to false. close window top right X depending upon version your are using...click on OK or Close Preferences tab. Restart Thunderbird.

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Thanks for the reponse @Toad-Hall. I tried your suggestion but it didn't change anything, I still can't open an attachment directly. But it could be a Silverblue problem...

-)
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Try this: Edit/Preferences/Attachments/Incoming, click the Action drop-down for a file (content) type such as pdf, select Use other..., do not select the helper app from the list, click Browse... and select the helper app or exe directly, close Preferences. Follow the same procedure for file types that aren't shown in Attachments when you try to open an attachment in a message, or if you delete the action from the drop-down in order to reset it.

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Thanks @showes, I tried your suggestion, but when I selected "Use Other..." I got a long list of files from my home directory. After a bit of googling I learned that Gnome's video player is called Totem. I eventually found an executable called totem, (in /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.gnome.Totem/current/active/files/bin), clicked on it and selected "Open". However the Action for mpeg-4 was still "Always Ask". It didn't set it to totem. I still think this may be a problem with Silverblue. I've seen a few strange anomalies along the journey, and it certainly has a funny way of doing things sometimes, but I'm sticking with it for now as I like the concept of an immutable OS.

-)
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Just to revisit this, the problem persists. It may be a problem with how TB is set up as a flatpak, or it may be a flatpak problem (it is apparently a bit flaky at times). Either way the problem has now become worse. A couple of weeks ago saving an attachment suddenly started working (Silverblue updates occur on an almost daily basis). Yesterday TB was updated, and now saving doesn't work any more, and opening an attachment still does not work. My suspicion is that it is not a problem with TB per se, but how it has been implemented as a flatpak as TB works fine on my other distros.

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Hey i am using firefox.

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My problem my matrial mobile no computer.

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Gugsa Beshir re: Hey i am using firefox. Firefox is a browser and nothing to do with Thunderbird.

re:My problem my matrial mobile no computer. Thunderbird is an email client that only runs on a computer eg: desktop, laptop etc.

This forum is only for issues with Thunderbird email client.