Closed Bug 154533 Opened 22 years ago Closed 21 years ago

download manager gives "unknown error" if helper app isn't found

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Download & File Handling, defect)

x86
Windows XP
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 162249

People

(Reporter: thomas-mzll-01, Assigned: bugzilla)

References

()

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.1a) Gecko/20020617
BuildID:    2002061712

I was experiencing a strange problem, where if I tried to open a Word document
in mozilla, it would prompt me to decide what to do: open it in "Word" or save
it to disk. I would choose to open it in Word, and it would give me an "unknown
error," tell me to save it to disk, and open it from there. (I've attached a
screenshot showing this error message, and also the other two related windows.)

One thing I will point out is that I never actually told Mozilla to use Word, or
where my Word application was located. So I don't know how it figured out to try
and use Word, but apparantly it guessed at the wrong location of the app? (Hard
to tell, since it just says "Word" in the dialog box.)

How I fixed it was to start a Word document download again, and then when
prompted for action, I went in and chose the program location manually, locating
winword.exe, and selecting to open it. This time it worked. 

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
Not sure about this, but if you're not experiencing this problem by default, you
should be able to reproduce it like this:

1. Download the word document referenced in the link above.
2. Select the option to open it, and browse for your copy of winword.exe with
the "choose" dialog.
3. Turn OFF the checkbox asking to prompt you every time.
4. Press OK. This should open the document in Word.
5. Now, temporarily rename winword.exe, so that Mozilla won't be able to locate it.
6. Try downloading the word docuemnt again. You should get the "unknown error."

Expected Results:  Assuming that the initial problem was that Mozilla was using
an invalid path to winword.exe, I think Mozilla should check to see if the
executable exists, and if not, it should display a dialog window telling them
the executable could not be found, and to locate the executable they wish to
use. (Perhaps even searching the hard drive for files named the same, allowing
them to select which one they want to use if any are found.) This all should be
done before the file is downloaded, otherwise it will be buried in some obscure
temp directory (at least on most new windows installations), and the person will
get annoyed that they have to download it again (since they might not be smart
enough to locate the downloaded file in the temp directory).
QA Contact: sairuh → petersen
still here in 2003040105
For some odd reason, when I left-click on an executable-type link Im no longer
receiving the pop-up box to ask where to download to.

Instead the file attempts to download to C:\Windows\Temp\ and fails with the
same exact error message the Reported attached to this ticket.

I was trying to download Yahoo! Messenger from
http://messenger.yahoo.com/messenger/download/dinstructions.html

I search both the GUI preferences and prefs.js  cannot find C:\Windows\Temp
anywhere.  Moreover, no matter which of the 3 download options I pick, I 
receive the same results.
Nevermind.  My application/octect-stream was mysteriously set to "Open it using 
the default application".  Once I changed it to "Save it to disk", everything was
OK.

Im losing my marbles ....
So, reporter, does this still happen on a recent nightly?

It may be a corrupt downloads.rdf, or cache, or something like that. try on a
new profile.
It still happens on recent Thunderbird builds, which use the same code from
Mozilla right?

I think the problem is that Mozilla doesn't check to see if the program actually
exists before it tries to open it with that helper app. So then it tries and
fails instead of asking you where the correct app is located (and saving that
info for that helper app record).
Comment #3 is the same as bug 193868, which also has some workaround
suggestions. Indeed the two bugs may be duplicates.
when the gray unknown error box comes up, Download manager will tell you that
the download failed. you can go to the temp directory and the file is there in
perfect condition.  You can move it to another directory and use the file or
just execute it from the temp directory. and then click on the  "OK" in the
error box for it to go away. This has been going on since an early 1.4 build.
Yhunderbird downloads correctly as does all versions of netscape and explorer
<frown> .

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 162249 ***
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 21 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
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