I had this problem forever, and I finally fixed it, so I’m going to tell you how I did it. If you haven’t ever had a problem with TweetDeck, you won’t find this very interesting. Feel free to skip along if that’s the case. ;} The next time some poor crusader searches Google for “TweetDeck URLs do not open in browser” or “Adobe AIR URLs broken” or “Why is TweetDeck / Adobe AIR opening all URLs in TextMate?” or “OH GOD WHY WON’T ANYONE HELP ME FIX TWEETDECK!?” their sad and lonesome prayers will (hopefully, possibly) be answered.

Here’s what was going on…

Every time I clicked a URL in TweetDeck, it brought up an error message in TextMate. I tried everything I could think of—reinstalling TweetDeck, Adobe AIR, and both, wiping out the preferences, fiddling with browser settings, trying to find a utility that could tell my computer that ALL web addresses should point to Firefox. I had no idea what was going on, and therefore, nothing worked.

I even tried emailing the TweetDeck folks and the Adobe AIR folks, but nobody could help me. I was completely confused, and finally, pathetically, I gave up.

And here’s what I did that fixed it…

But this week, full of chutzpah from my uber-exciting hard drive failure and the consequent series of miracles that ended in my complete recovery of all files and a very successful backup restoration (yes, I’m posting from that computer now—and because Apple no longer makes 100gb drives, I got a 250gb space upgrade. NICE, right?), I decided to try a few more things. Bringing over the Application Support & Preferences from a computer with a functioning TweetDeck didn’t work…

But here’s what did:

With the knowledge that I had it backed up in several different places, I deleted TextMate. Poof!

Then I clicked a URL in TweetDeck. Incredibly, it went to Safari (not my default browser). But it was a start!

Then I went into Safari’s preferences and made sure my default browser was, in fact, set to Firefox. Then I closed Safari, closed TweetDeck, reopened TweetDeck, and clicked another link.

It went to Firefox, new tab and everything. SUCCESS!

When I restored TextMate to its former happily-installed glory, the URLs continued to go straight to Firefox. And I was fixed!

That’s all I have to say. I have information, and I shall disseminate it. What’s the internet for, after all? ;}