I have a vexing, persistent Chime/Firefox configuration problem that I hope someone can help me fix. THE PROBLEM On one of my computers (but none of the others), local .pdb files fail to display in Chime in Firefox. This problem prevents local/developing/downloaded MolSlides from showing molecules. (Chime is invoked but remains blank and the MDL frank disappears). When you drag a .pdb file and drop it onto Firefox, Firefox shows an "Open or Save?" dialog, with Internet Explorer as the default "Open" application. If you try to tell that dialog to "Open in Firefox", you just get an endless sequence of such "Open or Save" dialogs. This problem does not prevent Chime from showing pdb files from on-line sources -- only pdb files on the local disk can't be displayed. Local pdb files dragged and dropped into Internet Explorer display in Chime just fine -- but IE doesn't work for MolSlide development. ATTEMPTS TO FIX THE PROBLEM 1. CAUSE UNKNOWN I don't know why the problem arose on this one computer, but on none of my others. I have seen the same problem on a computer in the lab of a colleague, and again, the problem occurred only one of several computers there. The problem seems to be quite unusual, as I have only seen it twice among perhaps fifty computers in diverse labs in the USA and Japan. 2. FILE TYPES The Windows "File Types" list specifies that PDB files are to be opened in Internet Explorer, both on computers without the problem and the one with the problem. The PDB setting under "File Types" appears to be identical on all computers. I have deleted this PDB entry and re-created it by installing Chime into IE, to no avail. I have also tried specifying here that Firefox should open PDB files, to no avail. 3. OTHER BROWSERS I had installed many different browsers on this computer. I uninstalled all of them (except IE which can't be uninstalled) to no avail. Besides browsers, and burning CD's and DVD's, I have used this particular Windows XP SP2 installation very little. 4. UNINSTALL, REINSTALL I have uninstalled and reinstalled both Firefox (current version 1.5.0.4) and Chime, in both orders, to no avail. Chime (file npchime.dll) remains behind in "Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins", surviving uninstallation and reinstallation of Firefox. So I tried deleting the otherwise largely empty "Mozilla Firefox" directory tree after uninstalling, before reinstalling -- also to no avail. When I speak of installing Chime, I mean both in Internet Explorer (where installation is automatic), and in Firefox, where I install Chime manually by copying the single file npchime.dll from the IE plugins directory to the Firefox plugins directory. 4. COMPARISON OF FIREFOX INSTALLATIONS I have two Windows XP SP2 installations, one with the problem and one without. I compared the entire "Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" file trees looking for some configuration difference (notably in one of the configuration files such as all.js or firefox.js) but did not find anything. There were only a handful of differences and none seemed to be related to PDB files. This leads me to suspect that the problem is in the Windows Registry, because I don't know of any other configuration files that might be involved. 5. WINDOWS REGISTRY I have searched the Windows Registry for "pdb", "firefox", and "chemical" (as in "chemical/x-pdb") and deleted anything that looked suspicious. The problem computer still boots without complaint but the problem persists. Next, I compared the entire exported registries from the problem computer, vs. another without the problem (both Windows XP SP2). There are two many differences to look at them all, but I looked at all the differences related to "pdb". I found four differences. I changed the registry in the problem computer to agree with the working computer regarding these four differences. Then, even after rebooting, and verifying that the changes "stuck", the problem remained. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, or if you have seen this problem (with or without being able to fix it). Sincerely, -Eric /* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Eric Martz, Professor Emeritus, Dept Microbiology U Mass, Amherst -- http://www.umass.edu/molvis/martz Biochem 3D Education Resources http://MolviZ.org See 3D Molecules, Install Nothing! - http://firstglance.jmol.org Protein Explorer - 3D Visualization: http://proteinexplorer.org Workshops: http://workshops.proteinexplorer.org World Index of Molecular Visualization Resources: http://molvisindex.org ConSurf - Find Conserved Patches in Proteins: http://consurf.tau.ac.il Atlas of Macromolecules: http://atlas.proteinexplorer.org PDB Lite Macromolecule Finder: http://pdblite.org Molecular Visualization EMail List (molvis-list): http://bioinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/molvis-list - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - */