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Having trouble with downloads; cannot change downloads folder; items save to downloads folder but I cannot open them;it save all downloads as a .part file

  • 9 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 17 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I cannot download any attachments. I get the pop up message to save it, I save it but it saves all attachments as a .part file which cannot be opened (or it just opens in Word even when it is a music/sound file. Also, I tried to change the folder I download to and it will not let me. I click "choose" in the downloads prefs area but it does not let me change it. the button is unresponsive.

I cannot download any attachments. I get the pop up message to save it, I save it but it saves all attachments as a .part file which cannot be opened (or it just opens in Word even when it is a music/sound file. Also, I tried to change the folder I download to and it will not let me. I click "choose" in the downloads prefs area but it does not let me change it. the button is unresponsive.

All Replies (9)

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Thank you but I cannot change the download folder which I think is the problem.

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Went through whole page of suggestions to no avail. It has to be the fact that I am not able to change the destination folder for my downloads. Any ideas? Thanks!

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Try deleting downloads.sqlite from the profile with Firefox not running. Does Mac OS Lion lock down the download directory so that you cannot set up another one?

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Where do you go to delete that file? (Try deleting downloads.sqlite from the profile with Firefox not running)

I have no idea if it is a Lion thing, but I believe I could not choose another download folder in Snow Leopard, either. thanks for the help!

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Lion hides the Library directory, but there are instructions on this page that describe how to make it visible.

In Snow Leopard, the Firefox profile is in User/<username>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<randomname>.default. I am assuming that the path has not changed in Lion.

Finding something in the Library used to be easy before Apple decided that Spotlight should no longer access it, so I have taken to using Easyfind instead. If the path to the profile has changed in Lion, you could still find it by searching for cookies.sqlite, but you cannot use Spotlight for that. Easyfind is much more versatile anyway.

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You usually need to make such changes in the Safari Preferences on Mac.
Firefox uses the default global settings as set in the OS system wide.

Do you have any security (Anti-virus software) running?

You can try to rename the .part file and remove the .part or give the file the correct file extension to make other programs recognize the file.

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Is that true of any OS past Tiger and Safari 2? I had the impression that that constraint was gone with Safari 3.

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I'm not on a Mac , so I don't know if there are still system settings that need to be changed in the Safari Preferences, but it won't hurt to check that out to be sure.