Closed Bug 175436 Opened 22 years ago Closed 19 years ago

Error, failure of key downloads

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Download & File Handling, defect)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
Download & File Handling
Platform:
x86
Windows 98
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: jon.roland, Assigned: bugzilla)

References

Details

When attempt to download some files, such as .exe and .gif, Download Manager
appends a .ext to the file name, will only download to c:\windows\temp
directory. At apparent end of download, get message:

<filename.txt> could not be opened, because an unknown error occurred. 
Sorry about that. Try saving to disk first and then opening the file.

The file does not appear in c:\windows\temp, and was not downloaded.

The problem is not specific to any particular URL. Does not occur with some
kinds of files, such as .zip. Sometimes, instead of downloading the file with
its own name, it tries to download with the URL of the page as the filename,
typlically with a .htm[l] extension.

I am having to use IE Explorer or an earlier version of Netscape to download
files. I would prefer that Mozilla function the same way they do, allowing the
user to select the download directory, change the filename, and that it not
attempt to open the file after downloading.

I would also prefer an option of NOT downloading supporting files of an HTML
file, putting them in a <filename>_files directory, and changing links in the
main file. I want to download files just as they are, changing nothing.
Reporter: This might be Bug 171441, please look it it (and dupe then or not).
And ALWAYS add a build ID in a bug report
Not a dupe of 171441, which occurs at the beginning of a download,
whereas this error 175436 occurs at the end. Tried renaming compreg.dat
but no joy.

Problem can be demonstrated by trying to download bouvier1.exe at
http://www.constitution.org/cs_refer.htm

Build version is 1.1.0.2002082611
www.constitution.org sends bouvier1.exe with
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

This bug is dupe of 120327 which is fixed in recent builds.



*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 120327 ***
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Reopening.  This has nothing to do with bug 120327 because here the file CANNOT
BE SAVED AT ALL.  Which is a very major difference.

Please be a little more careful when marking bugs duplicate, ok?

Jon, for the last part of your opening comment, just change the "file type"
selector in the filepicker from "web page, complete" to "web page, html only". 
That preference will stick, of course.

Now back to the main problem.  Are there any particular urls that you can point
me to that fail every single time?  Those would help immensely in debugging this....
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: DUPLICATE → ---
Sorry, I cannot distinguish this bug from the bug 120327 since
http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvier1.exe WFM on build 2002102512.
It DOES NOT append any extension.
It DOES download the file without any problems.

A URL for this this problem is exhibited is http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
from which I was unable to download updates and security patches, which are .exe
files. Had to use Netscape or IE. But any URL with a link to a .exe file will
do. Can't download any of them. Same problem with .gif files (!). Download
Manager insists on adding .txt, then at the end of the download, fails with the
"Could not open" message and no file left (in the c:\windows\temp directory,
where I don't want it anyway, as space on the C: drive is precious and not
sufficient for some files I might want to download (therefore the use of
external media -- sometimes including CD-R disks, to protect against
self-modifying executables).
I should add that the application associated with .txt files on my Win98 SE
system is UltraEdit, not Notepad, and it can open binaries for editing. Also,
Mozilla build 2002082611 is not installed on the C: drive, but on the E: drive,
as I do not install anything on the C: drive if I can avoid it. Also, I normally
only download files to a removable disk.

I am not working with 1.2 beta to have a stable product, so it is possible a
later build will have fixed the problem, but if so I would like to know which
one it is.
Jon, could you please give me precise steps on where to go from
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and what links to click on to reproduce this?

Another question... what do your helper app preferences say for .exe files and
for the type application/octet-stream?

Let's leave the c:\temp thing alone; that is a totally separate issue, ok?
Precise steps at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com ? Click on any of the
windows upgrades. Or any .exe file on at page anywhere. Have never been able to
download an .exe file from anywhere. Have tried more than a dozen sites. I just
provided an example of a self-extracting executable on one of my sites in the
original post.

Helper app preferences are blank for .exe files and for the type
application/octet-stream. I absolutely don't want newly opened executables to be
opened immediately upon being saved to disk. Run them through virus checkers first.


Oops! I went into Edit | Preferences | Navigator Helper Preferences, selected
application/octet-stream and Edit, changed the default option to "Save to disk"
and "Ask before opening ...". Now downloading works. I have to change the name
to remove the .txt extention Mozilla tried to append, but I can select the
target directory. Problem was user ignorance, but it could be considered a bug
in the way the default settings are done. Suggest the defaults should be "Save
to disk" and "Always ask" (which should be greyed if no application to open is
selected).

Thanks for your help. Visit our site at http://www.constitution.org for some
good material.
What were the settings before you changed them (when things were not working)? 
(As a note, there are no default settings at all in that panel; anything that's
set you set at some point, possibly without knowing it).
There are default settings in that panel, which shows an .exe file as "Text",
because you can only toggle between "Save to disk" or "Application", and the
default setting was "Application", but no application was selected (and Mozilla
apparently doesn't pick up the Windows associations). There us also an option
for "Ask me before opening..." which was set. Apparently, with "Application"
selected but without an application chosen, the download fails with an error
message that does not prompt the user to edit application/octet-stream to select
the application. I would say this qualified as a bug, because settings should
not cause operational failures unless there is an error message that explains
what to do to fix it.

There is no file type entry for "Executable" or ".exe", which might be a way to
set up Mozilla to handle .exe downloads without appending a .txt extension, if
it could overload the appending for application/octet-stream.

FYI, I have posted a couple of messages to netscape.public.mozilla.wishlist that
have some suggested enhancements that might be of interest, based in part on
Z-Mail, which is no longer supported, but which has some good features that
should be incorporated in Mozilla.

--Jon



OK.  Setting summary to something reasonable.... For the record, the way to
reproduce is:

1)  Set application/octet-stream to have the .txt extension
2)  Select "view with application"
3)  Set it to have no helper
4)  Leave "ask me" checked
5)  Click on a link to a file of type application/octet-stream that is not an
    EXE.
6)  In the helper app dialog that comes up, select an app you want to use and
    uncheck the "ask me" checkbox.

Is that correct?  If you repeat those steps do you see the bug?
Interesting. I am now unable to reproduce the bug by returning the settings to
what I originally found them to be: "Application" with no application selected.
Now when I try to download an .exe file, I get a window that prompts me with the
option of "Open using an application" or "Save this file to disk", set to the
latter, and "Always ask before opening this type of file" set, regardless of
whether I set "Always ask ..." in the edit window for application/octet-stream.
If I select OK I get a second window with "Enter name of file to save to" which
allows me to change the file name and directory. If in the first window I select
"Open using an application", the OK button is greyed until I select an
application. However, if I change the name of the file to remove the appended
.txt, and select "All files" (*.*), it comes back trying to append .txt to the
name, whereas if I just remove the .txt but leave it at "Save as type" (.txt),
it opens the Download Manager and saves successfully without the .txt extension.

I didn't get those two windows before I edited the application/octet-stream
entry. Mozilla just went directly to open the Download Manager window, tried to
download, and just at the end gave the message "Unable to open" and aborted the
download.

I conclude that editing the first time created a record that was missing during
the initial installation, and that the missing record created the problem.

Now if I can just solve the problem of Mozilla failing to load any Java applets,
even though the plug-in screen shows Java 1.4 installed, I will have solved my
two most pressing problems. (I reported this in bug #92782.)
I should add that if I just let Download Manager save the file without removing
the .txt extension it does so successfully with that name, which confirms my
theory that the original bug was the absence of a record for
application/octet-stream upon initial installation.
The original bug was a malformed record caused by a bug in the helper app
dialog, almost certainly.
Depends on: 86640
I don't think the bug is in the helper app dialog itself, because I had never
seen that dialog before the problem appeared or visited the edit window for the
helper app. My theory is that the bug is in the initial setup/installation. Once
I visited the edit window of the helper app, the problem got fixed.

I also observed the same bug in a new installation of build 2002082606 on an XP
machine, installed a few days previously.
The helper app dialog is the one that asks "do you want to save this or run it"?

The default installation (if it's a Mozilla.org build) does not include any MIME
configuration at all, and certainly no MIME misconfiguration.  We just make it
easy to create.  ;)
Yes, and originally I never saw that dialog window. I right clicked on the link
and selected "Save link target as ..." and the Download Manager was immediate
invoked, skipping the "Open/Save" and "Save as" windows. Right-clicking on the
link and selecting "Save as" now invokes the "Save as" window, skipping the
Open/Save window. Clearly there has been a persistent state change which is some
kind of record. It might be instructive to know where that record is, and
whether it can be viewed or edited, to examine its state immediately following
installation.
Well, the MIME data is stored in a file called mimeTypes.rdf in the profile
directory.  The file called prefs.js also contains preferences for "never ask me
again".
Reporter: Is this still a problem with a current Mozilla build?
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
Old version bug, no response. This should work, otherwise we had a lot of dupes
for that. Resolving.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago → 19 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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