I am reading an email newsletter in Thunderbird 115. Then I try to click on what I believe to be a link, but all I get is a magnifier icon with a plus inside. If I click what I believe to be a link that will take me to the sender’s site, the plus changes to minus. What?
Previously I ignored this and went to the site directly. Today, however, I was trying to scroll down to see the rest of the article and could not. There was a slider at the bottom to move left to right, but not at the side to move up and down. Hmm, why, I asked?
So I selected from the email menus “More” and looked at my options. I thought about choosing “Repair Text Encoding” but was not sure what that does, so instead I chose “Message Body As” and saw “Original HTML” was checked. So I chose “Simple HTML” and then I could scroll through the rest of the article.
Can someone help me understand this? Not all my emails are this way, so is there something I have set which causes this?
I like that I solved it, but would like to also know how & why.
If emails vary, it must depend on version of html used or whatever other encoding emails use.
I think most people set it to use html or rich text.
I had a look , but I can not see any likely settings, that might make it refuse to follow a link.
I wonder if it is something external to thunderbird, like not able to do dns lookups to resolve the link url?
I must note that the practuce of following links in emails has certain security implications… dont do it unless you are sure of the origin of the email
@nevj thanks. I’m not sure of the difference between Original HTML and Simple HTML, but all emails are apparently in Original HTML, whether they have hyperlinks or not. For instance, the email notification that you had replied on this forum had “Visit Topic” button, which I could click, as the cursor switched to a hand on hovering over it. But another email with images displays the zoom in/out icon, yet farther down in that email, links were active.
Well at least now I know how to resolve it in Thunderbird.
Oh, and I do not normally click email links, but one was my credit card statement and I thought it would take me to the sign in. However, Firefox has an add on that stops me from going almost everywhere…lol without confirming I am sure the link is safe. So it doesn’t do much good to click them. I just wondered why the zoom cursor appeared, but mostly why I could not scroll down to the end of the message.
Sheila
HI Sheila,
I’ve also been using Thunderbird for a few years now, but on Linux Mint the version is still 102.15.1 and I’ve never had that problem and I always have the “Message body As” in the “Original HTML”.
Did you start having this problem with version 115 or had you already had it?
@Tech_JA I am on LM and downloaded 115 because of all the new features. All of my emails in this new version are in the Original HTML. I don’t recall having this issue in the earlier version, so maybe it is something I should report. By changing the messages that somehow have the issues to Simple HTML, I am able to see and do what you should be able to in messages. So I am not sure if it is the new version of Thunderbird or something else.
I may try searching Mozilla and see if anyone has filed a bug report.
@Tech_JA at the time I posted this, yesterday, I was not. After your post this a.m., I checked and the update for 115.3.0 was available in Thunderbird, so I updated.
I looked at the fixes for this and did not see anything related to HTML, only suggestions for feature requests. I did notice there is a setting to display all messages as text, html, etc., but have not checked how that relates.
Thanks @Tech_JA . I also had the LM upgrade, but since I already had Thunderbird, it only updated it. I am wondering if it is certain newsletters that cause this, as I have spent time clicking on various ones and only a handful display images instead of the normal links–I am assuming that is why I get the zoom in/out button and links are broken. But since the upgrade, now when I choose Simple HTML, all images disappear, whereas they did not last week and it now no longer applies to just the email I am in but to all emails.
So for now, I am just going to the senders’ websites to read articles, rather than clicking to take me there.
Hi Sheila,
Now I can test Thunderbird v.115.
I can’t find anything on the net about your problem.
If I find any errors when trying to read the emails, I’ll let you know.