links to browser don't work

Question

links to browser don't work

Url links in my wife's email program fail to pull up relevant pages in Firefox. Just sit there and do nothing.

History. Started three or four months ago. Solution was to restart the computer. The links would then work for four or five clicks but stop after that.

Because of other problems with her computer, we bought her a new iMac, the 27inch model. Forget the precise specs but if they become important in this conversation, I can certainly get them.

The link problem worked fine for a bit but it's now back. Restart, four or five clicks, problem returns, restart, four or five clicks, etc.

She has the most recent system software and the most recent version of Firefox.

Any obvious or not so obvious suggestions would be appreciated.

John Kendrick

Mac Pro 3.1 2.8 GHZ, Mac OS X (10.6.6), 6 GB RAM

Posted on Feb 8, 2011 8:56 AM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

82,991 points

Feb 8, 2011 9:05 AM in response to John Kendrick

Firefox is not an e-mail program, it is a web browser. If she is using a webmail client, the problem is with the webmail client settings.

If she is using Thunderbird, maybe it is a setting within Thunderbird.

If she is using Mac OS X Mail, the problem may be with the formatting of the messages she receives not following HTML standards for links.

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Answer 2

Feb 8, 2011 9:09 AM in response to a brody

My apologies. And thanks for the reply.

I should have made that clearer. She is using Apple's mail program. And Firefox is her default browser.

As for the formatting of mails she receives, that was our first thought. But we've checked that carefully. It's not. The pattern of the problem appearing, restart, four or five successful clicks, then the pattern reappears, is now longstanding.

And very puzzling.

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Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

82,991 points

Feb 8, 2011 9:32 AM in response to John Kendrick

Check what the preferences are set for reading messages in Mail's preferences. Rich Text may have problems.

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Answer 4

Feb 8, 2011 9:45 AM in response to a brody

Just checked. Nothing pops up. Basically, she keeps all the default settings. Do you have some particular preference in mind?

More important, that argument wouldn't fit the pattern of restart, four or five good clicks, and then problems.

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Answer 5

rmgman

Level 3

538 points

Feb 8, 2011 12:43 PM in response to John Kendrick

Have you tried the usual fix by Repairing Permissions with Disk Utility?

Have you cleared the cache files from Firefox?

rmgman

Message was edited by: rmgman

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Answer 6

Feb 8, 2011 12:45 PM in response to rmgman

Good points. The permissions have been prepared since the problem started. For other reasons. As for the cache in Firefox, I'll have to check. One other way to check, might be to make Safari the default browser for a bit.

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Answer 7

rmgman

Level 3

538 points

Feb 8, 2011 1:08 PM in response to John Kendrick

This should help you:

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/How%20to%20clear%20the%20cache

And I imagine that your wife's Mac is using the most current version of Firefox.

Can I ask why you prefer Firefox over Safari?

~ rmgman

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Answer 8

Feb 8, 2011 2:06 PM in response to rmgman

Thanks, again. She's very busy grading papers right now and doesn't want to stop to fix that. We'll get to it. However, we're going to try changing the default browser setup to Safari first just to see what happens. We hadn't thought of that.

As for our preference for Firefox, it's basically our history. Once Firefox came out and we were both still on Windows computers, it was definitely the proverbial no-brainer to move from IE to Firefox. As we moved to a full house of Macs, we've simply kept it with Firefox.

Only used Safari when for one reason or another it failed to work well with some site. For instance, she uses Blackboard for her online courses and Safari tends to work better with it than Firefox.

Thanks again for the help. If we find that Safari has the same linking problem, I'll be back with more questions.

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Answer 9

Feb 18, 2011 5:24 AM in response to John Kendrick

I'm having the same problem, but only with Firefox. If I change my default browser to Opera, Safari, or Chrome, links work just fine. It's just Firefox.

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Answer 10

a brody

Level 10

82,991 points

Feb 18, 2011 5:35 AM in response to invision-studios

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/home is how you get support for Firefox.

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Answer 11

Feb 18, 2011 5:38 AM in response to John Kendrick

Be sure to quit Mail before changing the Default Browser setting in the Safari Preferences. Then upon a relaunch of Mail, it will pick up the change in preference.

Ernie

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Answer 12

Feb 18, 2011 7:38 AM in response to invision-studios

Thanks for the thought. Looks, given our experience, as if that is the problem. A couple of things, however. First, we'll need to get to the Firefox help to see if that is a fixable bug. And, second, I don't have that problem. So it's somehow fairly idiosyncratic.

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Answer 13

Feb 18, 2011 7:41 AM in response to a brody

Thanks for the Firefox support link.

John

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Answer 14

Feb 18, 2011 7:42 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

Thanks for the advice to quit from Mail before changing the Safari preferences.

John

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