Click on a link in E-mail, Firefox opens a new instance instead of tab

I'm in the process of moving from SeaMonkey Suite (browser and E-mail) and it's been painful so far but I'm getting there.

The stopper now is Firefox. When I click on a link in my E-mail client (eM Client) or a Internet shortcut on my Desktop or in a folder, Firefox opens a new instance of the browser instead of opening a new tab. This completely destroys the flow of trying to follow notices from here or any forum.

I posted a question on the Mozilla Firefox forum but trying to even navigate there is a painful experience.

Anyone have any idea on how to fix this?

I've got eM Client working pretty good now for both myself and my wife but the browser part is a killer. I can switch to Edge and see how that handles it but after spending 4+ hourse getting Firefox setup sop it's usable I'd sort of like to stay with it if possible.

Hoping someone here has some ideas.

Rats, didn't make any difference.



Closed and restarted Firefox, same problem. This is the Internet shortcut on the Desktop:



With Firefox open, double click on the shortcut and a new instance of Firefox opens.


Found the problem. I have two profiles, three counting Default. Default was set as Default so when a link was clicked it launched the Default account instead of using the current account in the open Firefox window. Pretty sucky as far as I'm concerned.

I fixed it by changing my account to Default and it all works now. This really sucks ans is much worse that how SeaMonkey handled it. Means it wont work for my wife. I need to try Edge and see how it handles this.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing as I have a lot of bookmarks while she has only a few. My setup would confuse her so separate profiles takes care of it. Unfortunately the default profile causes grief, as I said.

If I set it to my profile then when she clicks on a link it opens a new instance of FF with my profile. If I set hers as the default them the reverse if true.

What I need is for the P= parameter to also control the Default profile setting so if I open FF with P=Rich then the Default profile should be set to Rich. If I open it with P=Maureen then it should be set to Maureen.

Now if there is another command line parameter that control the default profile that would do the trick but I haven't found one yet, so for now I'm looking into the new Edge which also has Profile support but it's even more hokey and appears to be only controllable or switchable via a drop down inside Edge.

I may have to drop the use of Profiles and have a single setup that has the bookmarks she needs on the left and all my stuff after that.

Seamonkey made this so easy. This is yet another area where Firefox has regressed.

Her own account would also work, but I have a solution that seems to be working. I've removed setting a Default profile so each time we start Firefox we have to chose a Profile, hers or mine, then click the Start Firefox button. This works like adding -P AccountName to the target of a Firefox shortcut with one addition, it also sets that Profile as the default which solves my problem.

Netscape, Mozilla and then Seamonkey all worked as I described previously. Firefox which is the direction Mozilla took is the one that screwed it up, trying to compete with Internet Explorer and Chrome. They have a lot of good features but left a lot of good features behind for no good reason that I can see.

I'm set now. Not a perfect solution but workable and not overly annoying.

If Edge ever gets decent Profile support I may switch to it. I'll never use Chrome though, just don't like it.