[Users] firefox opens new copy of claws

[Dave Howorth]

On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 13:59:40 +0100
Michael Schwendt <bugs.michael at gmx.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 12:42:21 +0000, Dave Howorth wrote:
> 
> > I've noticed that for the past little while, whenever I click on a
> > mailto link in a web page, Firefox opens a new copy of claws-mail. I
> > don't want this.
> >
> > Previously when I clicked on a mailto link, it simply opened a
> > compose window using my already open claws session. This is what I
> > want.
> >
> > I don't think I have knowingly changed any settings in either
> > program. FF is 68.2.0esr (64-bit) and claws is 3.16.0. OS is
> > openSUSE Leap 15.0.
> >
> > Does anybody have any idea why this is happening and/or on what I
> > can do to revert the behaviour?  
> 
> Sounds a bit like the ancient issue where both programs use a
> different default TMPDIR depending on when they are
> launched. /var/tmp vs. /tmp

Hmm, if tmpdirs can affect the situation then it might be related. I
remember at some time fairly recently setting firefox to use a
different tmpdir because I was concerned about the size of /tmp. But I
don't even remember which machine that was on! :(

> If multiple copies of Claws Mail are running, do you see the
> "claws-mail-USERID" directories in multiple different tmp directories?

Ah ha! Yes, in /tmp I see:
# ls /tmp | grep claws
claws-mail-1000
claws-mail-1001

In /var/tmp nothing but if FF has started another claws then there is:

$ find ~/.mozilla -iname '*claws*'
/home/dhoworth/.mozilla/tmp/claws-mail.org-text-color.patch
/home/dhoworth/.mozilla/tmp/claws-mail-1000

So I suppose it was this machine I made the change on :) Progress I
think - thanks very much.

> If you set $TMPDIR for your user, does that make a difference?

Sorry I don't understand. I don't know what those tmpdirs are used for
or their relevance to my problem, nor understand how to fix it. Sorry
to be so ignorant.

OH, BTW I just changed to command in 
/home/dhoworth/.mozilla/firefox/lxvetjls.default/handlers.json
from "claws-mail %u" to "claws-mail --compose %u" and restarted FF but
it doesn't seem to have made any difference.