# Open Link Control Block and Variable URL Loaded from Airtable **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions about Thunkable X\ **Created:** [March 18, 2021, 1:05pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120 "2021-03-18T13:05:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![johnewangillydt6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@johnewangillydt6](https://community.thunkable.com/u/johnewangillydt6)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 1:05pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120/1 "2021-03-18T13:05:30Z")
Hi all, A quick question… I just cannot seem to get this working and have searched for several hours now ! My Thunkable App is looking up a URL from Airtable. The URL will change depending on the Value that is used as the entry for the Lookup. All is working and I get the returned URL. I just cannot seem to be able to use the OPEN LINK Control Block to open a variable link. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/thunkable/original/3X/8/d/8d7d24fd4c0ffd824a71dfe8f5cd132017606384.png) It does work if I have a “fixed” URL in the OPEN LINK Block Can anybody offer some advice ? ---
**Author:** ![codeswept](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/codeswept/32/87755_2.png) [@codeswept](https://community.thunkable.com/u/codeswept)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120/2 "2021-03-18T13:14:34Z")
Why not try using the variable URLDest instead of Label3’s text? ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120/3 "2021-03-18T13:54:58Z")
The first step is to show the URL, before trying to use it, on a label or an alert message to see if the URL itself has a problem. I can see that you are adding quotation marks to the start and end of it. Can you explain why? ---
**Author:** ![johnewangillydt6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@johnewangillydt6](https://community.thunkable.com/u/johnewangillydt6)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120/4 "2021-03-18T20:10:02Z")
Thank you very much for your help - appreciate it tremendously. To answer your questions : I was showing the URL into the Label in order to make sure that the correct value was arriving in the code. The quotation marks were part of debugging my routine - trying and trying to resolve it myself ! I certainly have come a long way due to your comments. I added a wait 5 seconds immediately before the OPEN LINK and removed the quotations and now I am getting the OPEN LINK working. So I guess I just need to control the time taken to actually get the values loaded into the relevant variables and make sure that the values have loaded properly - then off and running. For reference, I also note that in the live preview that if I used the variable URLDest in the OPEN LINK I got an error requiring RESET. Would be very grateful to find a way to check that the URL has loaded into the Label3 Text before calling the OPEN LINK - just so if it is running on slower devices - then I dont have a permanent 5 second delay. I do really appreciate all the help thank you. Thank you very much for your help ! Have a great day ! (edit - spelling) ---
**Author:** ![muneer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/muneer/32/75210_2.png) [@muneer](https://community.thunkable.com/u/muneer)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120/5 "2021-03-18T20:50:41Z")
One way to make a wait is to loop every few milliseconds and check the block when **initialize or change** for the variable. This will insure that the URL is available in the variable URLDest before attempting to open the link. ---
**Author:** ![ioannis](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/ioannis/32/146956_2.png) [@ioannis](https://community.thunkable.com/u/ioannis)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2024, 1:25pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/open-link-control-block-and-variable-url-loaded-from-airtable/1174120/6 "2024-11-08T13:25:58Z")