Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

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Psychonaut
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Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by Psychonaut »

Greetings.

Lately I've been having trouble adding attachments to e-mail messages I compose, or saving attachments from e-mail messages I am reading. The file selector dialog appears, but after selecting a location, the attachment usually doesn't get attached/saved. No error dialog is displayed, though an error message does appear in the Error Console. Usually if I repeat the process, it works the second time around.

Sample steps to reproduce: Right-click on a message attachment. Select "Save As…". File dialog pops up. Navigate to a directory in which to save the file and press "Save", or simply type a full path in the "Name" field and press enter. The file dialog disappears, but the file doesn't get saved to the directory. The following gets logged to the Error Console:
14:52:53.968 NS_ERROR_MALFORMED_URI: Component returned failure code: 0x804b000a (NS_ERROR_MALFORMED_URI) [nsIMessenger.saveAttachment] 1 msgHdrViewOverlay.js:1835
AttachmentInfo_save chrome://messenger/content/msgHdrViewOverlay.js:1835:5
HandleMultipleAttachments/actionFunction chrome://messenger/content/msgHdrViewOverlay.js:2704:50
HandleMultipleAttachments chrome://messenger/content/msgHdrViewOverlay.js:2708:11
oncommand chrome://messenger/content/messenger.xul:1:1
This happens with the openSUSE 42.3 package of Thunderbird 52.3.0 (64-bit). So far I haven't been able to reproduce it in safe mode, though it does happen in normal mode with all add-ons disabled. I haven't been able to reproduce it with the official Mozilla binaries.

Anyone else experiencing the same issue or know what the cause might be?
Last edited by LIMPET235 on October 11th, 2017, 6:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added [Linux] to the title.
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Psychonaut
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by Psychonaut »

So, no one else is having this problem? It's driving me crazy as every time I need to add or save an attachment, I have to do it twice (or sometimes even more) before it works. Can anyone suggest anything else I can do to troubleshoot?
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Psychonaut
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by Psychonaut »

OK, I see now that other openSUSE users are having this problem: see openSUSE Bug 1067656. The problem may be linked to the KDE integration that openSUSE applies. (It causes Thunderbird to use KDE file selection dialogs rather than the standard GTK+ ones. This has always worked in the past but maybe a bug was recently introduced.)
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Grumpus
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by Grumpus »

You can go into the Preferences/Advanced/General/Configuration Editor (like about:config in Firefox)
Find this item ui.allow_platform_file_picker and change it to false by right clicking and selecting toggle.
It's easy to change back if it doesn't work
This should allow the Thunderbird file picker.
Doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong for a toaster to walk around the house and talk to you
bolek
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by bolek »

Wow - :shock: - that's freaking obvious....

I just upgraded from openSuSE 13.2 to 42.3, and from Thunderbird 38 (?) to 52, so I don't know exactly where the culprit arose. However, before I did the toggle to fix the "Attach" file select, drag & drop DID work...

Thanks, Grumpus, for sharing your knowledge...

Czesc
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Psychonaut
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by Psychonaut »

On openSUSE, you can also uninstall the kmozillahelper package to prevent the KDE file selector from being used in Firefox, SeaMonkey, and Thunderbird. You may need to lock the package in zypper/YaST to prevent it from being automatically reinstalled.
jiunnyik
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by jiunnyik »

Hi,

By toggle ui.allow_platform_file_picker to false, here come another issue

File / folder name is sorting by Capital letter follow by small capital, like this.

Ab
Bc
Cd
De
ac
be
cg
dh

If ui.allow_platform_file_picker is true, it is like this

Ab
ac
Bc
be
Cd
cg
De
dh

Is there any way to sort file / folder name by alphabet no matter it is capital letter or small letter when ui.allow_platform_file_picker is toggle to false?

Thanks.
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Psychonaut
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Re: Can't add or save attachments. [Linux.]

Post by Psychonaut »

Just a guess, but if you're running on a Unix-like system, try invoking Thunderbird with LC_COLLATE=C. (If you're not using a Unix-like system, there may be some equivalent OS-level environment variable or other mechanism you can use that controls collation.)
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