276004 - Download Mgr doesn't save to specified download folder unless at least one file is right-click saved

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect)

Description

[Peter Brown]

Download Manager doesn't save to specified download folder unless at least one
file is right-click saved. I checked the settings several times and each time
the options for downloads point to my download folder (I use: C:\My Downloads).
I didn't even realize this for a while and couldn't figure out why my downloads
disappeared until I did a search on my computer and found them in: C:\Documents
and Settings\Peter\Local Settings\Temp
This continued for a while and when I decided to try right-click saving to my
download folder, from then on the downloads went to right place, even though all
settings seemed correct. The Download manager shows the proper folder and opens
it if you want, but the files don't start to go there.

Comment 1

[Chris Blore]

I was unable to reproduce this under 1.0 Branch (1.0 Final Release). 

Comment 2

[john russell]

As of April 1st this is still a problem. I changed my download
area to /toolbox  from the default setting of desktop!
but downloads go to desktop anyways ....   this occured with
a nightly loaded today to a CLEAN MACHINE! Others may not be able
to duplicate simply by doing download over existing or even after
uninstall as various things are not cleaned up with uninstall...
This must be tested on virgin machine to see the bug!! 

Comment 3

[Aaron Smith]

(In reply to comment #2)
> As of April 1st this is still a problem. 

Using Windows XP Pro SP 2, I downloaded build 1.8b2: 2005040306, installed in to
an empty directory, and ran it with a new profile. I then went to Tools ->
Options -> Downloads -> Save all files to this folder, and selected
c:\downloads. I then navigated to
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/PowerStrip/930119700/1, selected "Download
Now," and when prompted to save the file, selected the OK button, and the file
showed up in c:\downloads. 

I then launched the same build of Firefox using an existing profile that also
showed the "Save all files to this folder" location as being c:\downloads. But
when I select OK to the download file dialog from the page listed above, the
file downloaded to my desktop (i.e. c:\documents and settings\username\desktop). 

I relaunched Firefox using the new profile, and the download goes back to the
c:\downloads folder. I can duplicate this 100% of the time.

Comment 4

[Phillip Susi]

As of today, April 8, the current nightly builds still have this bug, and I
tracked down some more details on the cause.  I ran into the problem when I
started using the nightly builds, then joined my computer to a domain and copied
my user profile from the administrator directory to another directory for my
domain login.  After that I noticed firefox kept saving downloads to the
administrator's desktop directory even though I repeatedly set the default
download directory to the new user profile's desktop directory in the downloads
section of the options dialog.  

The cause of the problem seems to be that in the stable release the user setting
that controls where the download manager saves to is
browser.download.defaultFolder.  The stable release of firefox 1.0.2 correctly
sets this variable in the settings dialog, so the download manager uses the
correct directory.  The nightly build's settings dialog instead sets the
variable browser.download.downloadDir, which has no effect, I guess because the
download manager is still reading from defaultFolder, not this new downloadDir.  

So basically the new settings dialog is using the wrong variable for the
download folder.  

Comment 5

[waisean]

Appears to default to desktop. Bug was encountered using the nightly build
(downloaded 4/8/05, around 11 PM EST)

Comment 6

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

The remaining issues with this are being tracked on the trunk in bug 284089.
This is most likely a dupe. Marking depends for now.

Comment 7

[Darin Grimm]

Bug 284089 has ben fixed (upon which this bug depends).  Based on comment #6,
can anyone verify that this bug has been fixed?

Comment 8

[Aaron Leventhal]

Doron, this is a real accessibility problem with the download manager.

Comment 9

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Is this still an issue in current builds?

Comment 10

[Don Willis]

This is a potentially dangerous bug because it has the ability to act as a virus, filling up someone's hard drive without knowing it. 
After using the download feature for months successfully in Firefox, one day it stopped working. I would try to download files using Firefox, but they always seemed to disappear. This went on for weeks, until eventually ...
I finally gave up and just used Safari (reluctantly) for my downloads.
It wasn't until much later that I did a search for one of my downloads and found  it -- along with dozens of other files -- in an old folder. I guess Firefox had been putting every single one of those "disappearing" files into that same folder (not the selected default folder). This folder was one that I had used several months earlier for only one day to download MP3s into an album folder. I no longer used that folder. The problem happened after I went into preferences and selected another default folder for my downloads.
This problem caused me to have several hundred megabytes of files buried in a folder I never looked at; it was filling up my drive without my knowledge. It also is frustrating waiting for a file to download, and then not being able to find it. 
I just wanted to pass this info along. I see that others have reported it also, but I just wanted to tell you that scenario to give an idea of the severity of the problem. 
Also, the last comment on this forum asks if it's still an issue with the current builds - yes it is. I downloaded the most recent alpha version, Deer Park 1.6a1: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051029 Firefox/1.6a1)
It did the same thing in this build.
I love Firefox otherwise; that little bug is just an annoyance to me now that I am aware of it.Thanks so much for your time, and I hope this helps you in some way.

Comment 11

[Chris L]

Related? Bug 331025