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After Tbird 91 upgrade, get "there is no email program associated..." dialog when starting Tbird

  • 8 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 16 views
  • Last reply by 201812

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Just downloaded and ran the Thunderbird 91 release (x64 version on Windows 10) to upgrade from version 78.2. Now, every time Thunderbird starts, I get a msg dialog containing the text: "There is no email program associated to perform the requested action. Please install an email program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel." Once I OK the dialog, Thunderbird starts and, as far as I can tell, runs normally and sends and receives emails without problem. I was getting no such error msg with Thunderbird 78 when starting it. I re-ran the install a second time, but the problem persists.

I've checked default apps, and default email application is set to Thunderbird, and I can right-click on a file in Explorer and and select Send To / Mail Recipient, and I correctly get a Thunderbird email window opened with the file attached. Any ideas on what Windows is complaining about?

Just downloaded and ran the Thunderbird 91 release (x64 version on Windows 10) to upgrade from version 78.2. Now, every time Thunderbird starts, I get a msg dialog containing the text: "There is no email program associated to perform the requested action. Please install an email program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel." Once I OK the dialog, Thunderbird starts and, as far as I can tell, runs normally and sends and receives emails without problem. I was getting no such error msg with Thunderbird 78 when starting it. I re-ran the install a second time, but the problem persists. I've checked default apps, and default email application is set to Thunderbird, and I can right-click on a file in Explorer and and select Send To / Mail Recipient, and I correctly get a Thunderbird email window opened with the file attached. Any ideas on what Windows is complaining about?

All Replies (8)

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I filed the following bug because that appears on one of my profiles. The response so far is not great. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1722256

What I did find was that when I redid the integration part of Thunderbird that I no longer saw the dialog. Goto Preferences and search for integration. When you locate system integration click the check now button. Tick all the options and use the set as default button.

Note to save space, if you are not in the habit of using windows search to search your email deselect the allow windows search to search messages as this effectively doubles the on disk storage requirements and slows Thunderbird.

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Interesting - when I select Tools / Preferences, The Preferences tab opens, but the right hand pane which should show the various options is blank, and I get no response from Thunderbird. If I fire up Task Manager, I can see that Thunderbird is using a constant ~28% of the available CPU (quad core Intel i7) and TB memory use is climbing by around 100Mb every second. After this had been running for two or three minutes, and TB memory use had climbed to around 15Gb, I terminated it with Task Manager.

Tried again with Thunderbird in safe mode, and there I was able to open Preferences and make the changes you suggest. However, doing so has no effect on the problem - I still see the error dialog the next time TB is started.

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Well, I uninstalled Tbird 91.1.1 x64, installed Tbird 78.14 x64, ran "thunderbird.exe -p --allow-downgrade", and the problem was gone. So it seems to be related to Tbird 91 - I was using the same profile on both versions. I also tried uninstalling Tbird 91.1.1 x64 and installing 91.1.1 x86, but that still gave the "There is no email program associated..." error dialog on startup.

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I too have this issue. I'm posting so I'll get email updates. I have 2 machines that I updated ver 78 to 64bit a long time ago and then the 91 update was offered. One has this issue the other does not. I removed the problem system TB and reinstalled ver 78 32 bit. Also reloaded my profile. Then tried the update. No good. I've reset the problem machine to ver 78 64bit, and all is fine now but I sure would like this fixed otherwise I'm not able to upgrade.

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Al said

I too have this issue. I'm posting so I'll get email updates.

There is an" I have this problem. too" button for just that purpose that saves on the spam for the others subscribed to the topic.


I found on one profile that re doing the "integration" from the preferences and selecting all of the options I could, including calendar that the issue went away.

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I tried that. I tried the update again today, and it was fine till I uninstalled Outlook. The popup started back. So to try to diagnose if the system was setup for TB email, I have a "mailto:" link in my web page. So I clicked it, (with Outlook removed and TB v91 not running), and the mailto link launched the compose window for TB and also the message box telling me no email program is associated. Now if that isn't a joke. Whatever it is, it's not an email association that I can see.

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Well, I think I found the issue in a round about way. I installed a new copy of Windows 10 in a VM, and installed Thunderbird v91 and my profile from my production windows 10 (didn't want to reconfigure accounts etc).

Well, guess what... the issue is there!!

So I created a new profile and selected it in Thunderbird -P. And guess what... well if you can't guess, then stop reading.. LOL Yes, the new profile works. So glad I have everything moved to IMAP. It's just a process of setting up the accounts. Local Folders can just be copied. I'll be working in no time.

And applying this logic to my production system worked. It was the profile. Not sure what, but... Took about 2hours to move, setup, copy etc. Looks great and is probably a lot leaner!

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