Outlook 2007 and Firefox "general failure" link incompatiblity
When clicking on a hyperlink in an email or RSS feed in Outlook 2007, rather than have a browser window open up automatically, I was greeted with a cryptic dialog box that contained an error message:
General failure. The URL was: "http://foo.bar.com". The system cannot find the file specified.
Ugly. And I discovered that the link URL was valid, but that for some reason Outlook 2007 was unable to open any link I clicked on. I Googled for a solution to this problem, and found others who were experiencing the same issue, and it appeared to be related to a bug in Firefox. Their suggested work-around was to make Internet Explorer my default browser. Great, except for one thing - IE7 was already my default browser. Someone else said he solved the problem by reinstalling Windows XP - yow!
UPDATE: The only way I've found to fix this problem was to make Mozilla Firefox my default Web Browser. My original "fix" didn't last very long and the problem returned, but having Firefox set as the default browser seems to have solved the issue with Outlook 2007 permanently.
Below is the original "fix" I tried that only temporarily solved the problem:
1) Click on Start menu
2) Click on "Set Program Access and Defaults"
3) Click on the "Custom" button
4) Under "Choose a default Web Browser," uncheck the "Enable access to this program" checkbox that corresponds to Mozilla Firefox. For good measure, make sure Internet Explorer is your default browser by selecting that button.
5) Click "OK"
This completely eliminated the problem. Links in Outlook 2007 now open properly when I click on them.
Oh, I also spent several hours setting up a Linux-based mail server - SMTP and IMAP, using my current faves of Postfix for SMTP and mail delivery and the new (for me) IMAP/POP server called dovecot. Dovecot is also handy in that you can use it to set up authenticated SMTP (SASL) with Postfix, thereby avoiding the need for Cyrus SASL. So between the new mail server and Outlook/Firefox, I've been doing a ton of troubleshooting this afternoon.
20 comments:
I had the same problem. I fixed it actually by completely uninstalling firefox and then re-installing it. What I found when I did that was that I actually had two versions of firefox installed, which I believe were interfering with each other.
Hi,
I really want to use firefox with outlook 2007, but am officially befuddled with the General Failure issue. I have a new system, and I tried to fix the problems by utilizing your suggestions, but could not, after several attempts.
I have now uninstalled firefox and using IE7. I am willing to retry firefox by installing it again. Also, have you found an auto-fill compatible with the newest version of Firefox?? Any thoughts...
Thanks...
Fred,
The latest Google Toolbar for Firefox has an autofill feature.
-Daniel
Same problem with Vista/Outlook 07 - Firefox is already my default browser. Link opens, but so does error message at the same time.
Just about done with Firefox. The lack of pre-filling with my bookmark names when I type in the URL bar is something I really miss from IE. Plus, Windows Update requires IE, plus this Outlook problem. And Firefox crashes about as much as IE7 did...
Windows update does require IE, but it doesn't mean you need it to be your default browser. And if your Firefox is crashing, you have other issues far greater than this annoying bug.
I ran into those General Failure errors myself in Outlook with the latest Firefox and recognized them from back when I was on Windows XP. After a little digging, it looks like the same fix that worked there works here, but on a different registry key. I posted about it here:
http://www.figarocastle.org/blog/archives/2007/06/firefox_vista_o.html
This fixed the issue for me, hopefully it will for you all too.
Doh, looks like Mozilla already had a knowledge base article up here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Windows_error_opening_Internet_shortcut_or_local_HTML_file_-_Firefox
I am using Vista and I already have my defaults set to Firefox but I looked anyways and I noticed that my .url files were still set to open with IE. Once I changed this the problem never came back.
Anonymous was just talking about the file association on Vista for .url files...he/she is dead on the money there. i had the same issue (hyperlinks in Outlook generated a URL error code before opening the requested page on Firefox).
By clicking 'start', then 'default programs' then scrolling down to .url files, just change the default program to firefox and the problem should be resolved. The path for Firefox is usually: c:/programfiles/mozilla firefox/firefox.exe
Run Windows/Microsoft Updates with Firefox.
Do it all with Firefox!
Just install the IE Tabs add-on for Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
IE Tabs fixes all the ActiveX features that you can't access in Firefox. Whenever you click on a link/page that says you must be running IE or invalid browser... just right click and select "View Page in IE Tab" or, my fav, "Open in IE Tab." You can also set what pages open in an IE Tab by default, ie MS Updates. It is also great for clients who use Outlook Web Access (OWA), but prefer to use Firefox as their primary browser.
I suggest trying it out. In find that adding IE Tabs to Firefox makes it the ideal web browser.
Cheers,
Stevens
"Anonymous said...
I am using Vista and I already have my defaults set to Firefox but I looked anyways and I noticed that my .url files were still set to open with IE. Once I changed this the problem never came back."
That's what did it for me.
Thanks.
IE Tabs worked on my system, and now I am back to using Firefox as the default browser. Thanks for the information.
Mark
Non of the options that I found online worked for me!
I have Vista Ultimate with Office 2007 and Firefox 2.0.0.7
So, I tried following:
1. Close all programs
2. Uninstall Firefox through Control Panel -> Uninstall a program
3. Delete Mozilla Firefox Folder from Computer -> C: drive -> Program Files
4. Perform Disk Cleanup
5. Restart Computer
6. Download and Install new Mozilla Firefox from www.mozilla.com
7. And it works :-)
It takes about 3-5 minutes to do all this and you are not playing with register keys risking to mess-up something serious!
I hope this helps to some of you!
Yo!
I had the same problem. But i made a little and old school trick. 1st select the IE5-6-7-8 etc. :) for the default browser then "fix this error" select Firefox for system default browser & voila: mission accomplished
*Thank You* for posting! I've been having the same problem with Maxthon 2 and found that your "Set Program Access and Defaults" works perfectly :)
Gasp! Turns out it's not a Firefox bug, but something M$ did with the latest patches. Go into IE, Tools - Options. On the Internet Options Dialog choose the Reset button. Reset everything. And yes, I'm using firefox as my default browser, and this fixed outlook.
Redmond - where quality is spelled with a K, just in case you're wondering...
thanks a lot, mate.
that was really annoying.
glad i got it solved thanks to this post :)
The .URL association fixed the problem for me with Outlook 2007 / Vista.
I heard about not bad application-fix my outlook, can be work with damage data in Microsoft Outlook, possible it may recover corrupted contacts with are sharing it, also do something read (detect and recover) data from the selected *.pst file, work with storing emails, business and personal contacts, as well as other important information, such as appointments, tasks and notes.
I have had the same problem with Google Chrome being my default browser. I don't think it is a Firefox issue, but Windows hating on any browser except IE.
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