embedded url won't work?

Hi
we are using embedded URL with alerts and withe the TEXT  parameter in
order to direct the SOC team who monitors the monitor :) to call the right
team to handle incidents.  This is a URL to an html document outside of
xymon.
e.g. in the analysis.cfg there are such entries for monitor processes in
the form e.g. of TEXT="<a href=/alerts/xymon_sendmail.html
target=_blank>sendmail</a>"
This is working fine for 4.3.18, but stopped working when migrating to
4.3.28.
The links showed, and when hovering on shows the correct URL, but nothing
happen when clicking - this never made its way back to the apache server
(access log).
URL embedded in the columndoc works fine.
it is running on Oracle Linux 6.8.
Any idea?
Cheers
Ron