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Firefox can't save downloads on OS X

  • 7 valiny
  • 4 manana an'ity olana ity
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  • Valiny farany nomen'i ric91

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I have an installation with FF 32.0.3 on Apple OS X 10.9.5 which is unable to save any downloads.

I can start a download, FF creates the .part-file, furthermore the real filename will be created too. The download manager immediately shows "Failed" for the download and the file with the real filename is empty. Sometimes the part-File contains the data, but not always.

I've tried all from http://mzl.la/LJ0h2w, nothing worked. I created a new FF-profile, does not work.

When I switch to another user on this Mac it will work. So it is in fact a setting within this user. But where to look further?

Thanks in advance an best regards, Ric.

I have an installation with FF 32.0.3 on Apple OS X 10.9.5 which is unable to save any downloads. I can start a download, FF creates the .part-file, furthermore the real filename will be created too. The download manager immediately shows "Failed" for the download and the file with the real filename is empty. Sometimes the part-File contains the data, but not always. I've tried all from http://mzl.la/LJ0h2w, nothing worked. I created a new FF-profile, does not work. When I switch to another user on this Mac it will work. So it is in fact a setting within this user. But where to look further? Thanks in advance an best regards, Ric.

All Replies (7)

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Hi ric, I understand that on one Mac account it is not possible to save downloads. Please check the file permissions on the downloads file.

Please also see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_save_or_download_files#Cho...

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Thanks for your input. Download dir is Desktop and permissions are as follows:

computername:~ username$ ls -l|grep Desktop drwx------+ 19 username admin 646 14 Okt 14:31 Desktop

Doesn't matter what directory we choose, it is always the same behavior.

FF creates the .part file which contains the download itself. Then FF creates the final file but the size is always zero. It looks like the last step - move the content into the final file - will fail:

computername:Desktop username$ ls -l -rw-r--r--@ 1 username admin 0 14 Okt 14:24 downloadfile.pdf -rw-r--r--@ 1 username admin 90016 14 Okt 14:23 tbsWPYgF.pdf.part

So FF can create and name files. If I rename the part file by hand it will run fine.

FF runs with user privilegs:

computername:Desktop username$ ps -eo ruser,f,comm|grep Firefox username 4084 /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox

I set browser.download.debug tot true. Firebug shows: "NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE: Async version must be used - nsHelperAppDlg.js (Line 207)" I don't know if this is important or not, it comes up on downloads.

I worked through all the hints about download errors, nothing helped so far. Any more ideas?

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I found this on the error, the last comment gives a pretty accurate explanation: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2766341

Do you have an antivirus that may be causing this? See:

<edit> scanwhendone was removed from Firefox in version 31. Thank you ideato for catching this.

Novain'i guigs t@

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Try to update to Firefox 33.

Do you have any parental controls enabled on the OS level?

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Thanks for your input.

So I think the error mentioned above is irrelevant for this.

There is no antivirus running on this Mac, means ScanWhenDone is not available.

Any other ideas?

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Update to 33 does not change this behavior.

There are also no parental controls enabled.

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Came back this morning into the company and heard another two employees having the same problems on two other Macs. So to me it begins to look like a problem FF does when running in a network environment...

One more thing: FF can upgrade itself without any problem.

Novain'i ric91 t@