Turns out that this error message is thrown when the resource identified can't be found. The error message should be changed to add the other possibility, or the error coding changed to afford a narrow but accurate result.

Created attachment 123480 [details]
Test presentation

Created attachment 123481 [details]
Absolute URL error message

TESTING with Ubuntu 14.04 +
LO 5.2.0.0.alpha0+ (2016-02-24_23:58:47)

(In reply to Marc Grober from comment #0)
> Clicking on a live link in a LO 5.1 presentation under MAC OSX 10.11 results
> in...error message

Created test doc  attachment 123480 [details] to try to replicate problem. Added valid (example.com) urls, plus something similar to what's displayed in original screenshot.

Couldn't repro -- could generate error message seen in attachment 123481 [details], but that seems pretty descriptive.

Marc: How was the original URL formatted? Could you please attach the original presentation document to this bug report? Thanks

Status -> NEEDINFO

Created attachment 123482 [details]
ppt file with problematic link

 Offending link references a file:// resource and can be found at slide 27.  I saved this file as a LO presentation with the same result.

 I then deleted the link, and created a new one to a working http:// resource, and the link was followed correctly - both in a Presentation file and in a Powerpoint file.

(In reply to Robinson Tryon (qubit) from comment #4)
> TESTING with Ubuntu 14.04 +
> LO 5.2.0.0.alpha0+ (2016-02-24_23:58:47)


@qubit Was this something perchance flagged as "fixed" in 5.2.0.0?  Did you test with 5.1+ with Ubuntu?  Might this be an OS issue

@qubit

I took your demo doc and I created a new slide with two file links, one to a document that existed, and one to a document that did not exist.

The document that existed came up as it should.  The document that did not exist brought up the same error message as before,

"LibreOffice could not find a web browser on your system. Please check your Desktop Preferences or install a web browser (for example, Firefox) in the default  location requested during the browser installation."

From Stephan Bergman:

The presented error message should become less misleading in LO 5.2 with <https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=83de4879c3cd416c423dd147be6511a1d074c8c9> "Improve error message when URL cannot be opened externally".

Editing an existing hyperlink works via "Insert - Hyperlink" when you have the hyperlink selected (which is often easier to do with the keyboard than with the mouse, <https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98575> "Impress: Hard to select a hyperlink with the mouse").

TESTING with Ubuntu 14.04 +
LO 5.2.0.0.alpha0+ (2016-02-24_23:58:47)

(In reply to Marc Grober from comment #5)
>  Created attachment 123482 [details]
>  Offending link references a file:// resource and can be found at slide 27. 

Great, thanks!

(In reply to Marc Grober from comment #0)
> Clicking on a live link in a LO 5.1 presentation under MAC OSX 10.11 results
> in the following error message [..]

I opened the file and navigated to slide 27 in presentation mode, BUT:
Clicking on the link (I also tried double-clicking, CTRL/ALT/SHIFT -clicking) doesn't seem to have any visible side effect. Same results with LO 5.1.0.3.

I usually run LibreOffice from the command line, and so I do get this message printed to stderr (for 5.2 and 5.1):
"gvfs-open: file:///D:/cgi-bin/folioisa.dll/stattx06/query=%5BJUMP:'AS4725615'%5D/doc/%7B@1%7D%3Ffirsthit: error opening location: Error when getting information for file '/D:/cgi-bin/folioisa.dll/stattx06/query=[JUMP:'AS4725615']/doc/{@1}?firsthit': No such file or directory"

It's possible that I'm not getting a pop-up because the app is in presentation mode?

Tossing this back into UNCONFIRMED for now.

Ok, so as there is a commit fixing it, Marc could try with a fresh master build: http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/master/MacOSX-x86_64@49-TDF/current/

If it's good, mark this report as RESOLVED FIXED.

With master in slide edit mode :

Version: 5.3.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: 4d49c9601c9b3e26a336e08e057d299895683480
Threads CPU : 2; Version de l'OS :Mac OS X 10.11.5; UI Render : par défaut; 
Locale : fr-FR (fr.UTF-8)


I get the following message when clicking on the last link of the slide in the test presentation :

Opening "file:///home/qubit/libreoffice/bugs/98571/AS%2013.16.470" failed with error code 21 and message: "Is a directory"
Maybe no web browser could be found on your system. In that case, please check your Desktop Preferences or install a web browser (for example, Firefox) in the default location requested during the browser installation.

I get the same error message in presentation mode. Seems like this hasn't been fixed for Mac ?

This is still present, same behavior as comment 11

Given that this is just a misleading message as it's not related to the browser, I'm lowering the importance. This could probably be an easyHack

Version: 6.2.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: b292a27698e85fd9d60c03613c3b0c67835c4dc1
CPU threads: 2; OS: Mac OS X 10.12.6; UI render: default; 
TinderBox: MacOSX-x86_64@49-TDF, Branch:master, Time: 2018-06-06_23:25:55
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); Calc: group threaded

Version: 6.2.3.2
Build ID: aecc05fe267cc68dde00352a451aa867b3b546ac
CPU threads: 8; OS: Mac OS X 10.13.6; UI render: default; VCL: osx; 
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI-Language: en-US
Calc: threaded