Thunderbird no longer plays sound file on new incoming mail messages
I have had Thunderbird set to play a sound file when I get a new mail message. I am currently on v128.11.0esr after being on 115 and earlier. I got the custom sound playing whenever a new incoming message arrived but the last several versions seem to have broken that. Possibly v102 was the last time it worked and has reverted to the default system sound for new mail.
After updating to v128.11.0 I was checking all the settings and noticed that path to the sound file shows '%' in place of any spaces in the folder path. I never paid attention to the % before since it worked on this Windows 10 computer since new in 2021 but stopped working in the last few years. I did notice that Edge opens some .mht files and displays the locally saved web pages with the % without a problem. Actually displays '%20' instead of the spaces. If I do file open from Firefox after navigating to the .mht file it opens in Edge instead of Firefox. Not sure if Edge or Firefox saved the webpage originally but now only Edge will open it.
I did change the folder name replacing the spaces with '_' and now the sound will play but if Windows allows spaces in folder names and paths why should Thunderbird now care?
All Replies (4)
I'm curious about this sound file as you mention 'navigating to the .mht file'
So I'm wondering why you are linking to a .mht file extension.
I downloaded a .wav file I found via the internet which is a sound file and put it into: C:/Users/username/Music/ So it's a file stored on my computer.
Then selected in:
- Settings > General
- scroll to 'Incoming Mails'
- Select 'Play a sound'
- select 'Use the following sound file'
- click on 'Browse' and select the sound file and click on 'Open'
AS an example it now says: file:///C:/Users/myusername/Music/MASHradar-mailcall.wav
I'm not seeing any % in the file path.
re: Not sure if Edge or Firefox saved the webpage originally but now only Edge will open it.
That's because you have your computer settings set up to use Edge to open those types of files.
Computer - in search type: 'Default apps' Select 'Default apps' Scroll down and select: 'choose default applications by file types' I currently have .mht (MHTML Document) and it auto set up by Windows OS to use Edge Internet Explorer
But those .mht files are not sound files. So are you trying to hook up to something in a webpage rather than a sound file stored on computer ?
The sound file was a .wav file. Sorry for the confusion. The only other time I see '%' in a path where a folder has spaces was to a .mht file when I had saved a friends webpage before he decommissioned it in 2009. If I manually try to open it within Firefox by file open, it opens in MS Edge. .mht is associated with Firefox.
Something must have changed in Thunderbird for it to have a problem with spaces in folder names since late 2021 when first installed on this computer when new.
OK done a bit of digging and apparently Firefox does not support opening of .mht nor .mhtml documents.
There used to be an addon UnMHT but it's not compatible with current versions of Firefox. It's not been supported since Firefox 57 (Quantum).
MHT (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension HTML) is a file extension type mainly associated with an "MHTML Document," made by Microsoft. So it's a Microsoft thing.
So, setting them to use Edge is your best option.
So for the original problem with a custom sound not playing because of spaces in the folder name or part of the path just substitute a '_' or '-' since later versions of Thunderbird can't deal with spaces. I did notice that all of the subfolders created by Thunderbird on the C drive for profiles, etc all have '-'.
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