301658 - Firefox hangs (forever) when trying to save the currently displayed page to local hard disk

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[John Smith]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20041122
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20041122

While trying to save a page from the web (File --> Save Page As) the Firefox
hangs (i.e. displays a gray in its whole) and never recovers (several times I
waited up to 20 minutes). It does not save the requested file. It does not
recover from that state by itself. I am seing this for every page that I ever
tried to save from Firefox. Exactly the same behaviour is dislayed on all three
machines that I am using - two Win2000Pro boxes and one WinXP Pro box. Versions
impacted: Firefox 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.4, 1.0.5 (I did not try v1.0.3). 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open any web page (e.g. an interesting Slashdot story)
2. Try to save it (CTRL+S, or File --> Save As)
3. Wait a loooong time and bite your nails becaus you can not browse anything
while the browser hangs
4. Loose patience, kill Firefox, say to you self "this is a *rap", and open
Mozilla suite (which saves files fine, although somehow slow)
5. Several months or weeks later try the same with a new version of Firefox

Actual Results:  
Browser is unresponsive. 
File is not saved.
Browser does not recove itself - ever.

Expected Results:  
File is saved on the local disk, browser allows you to browse further.

No visible error message is displayed.

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(Q1) What was last successuful storage for "Save As"?
Restart Firefox(don't try "Save" again), go about:config, then check 
browser.download.dir value.
If network resource or mountable one such as USB, change browser.download.dir to
"C:\" then try "Save As" again.

(Q2) What will happen when "Safe Mode" of Firefox?

Comment 2

[kalle]

I have this problem also, on Win XP Pro, on an Amilo Pro (Fujitsu-Siemens laptop). The browser.download.dir is a valid location on my hard drive. Safe mode also hangs FF.

Comment 3

[John Smith]

Well, after long time, it still does the same. I will not be trying anymore, it appears that there is no hope that this application will ever get functional/usefull for me.

Comment 4

[John Smith]

Long delayed answers to Wada's questions, this time with FireFox v1.0.7:
1) in about:config there does not exist browser.download.dir variable 
2) SaveAs hangs in the same manner as Save
3) To be honest, I do not know how to get into the "Safe Mode"

Comment 5

[kalle]

(In reply to comment #4)
> 3) To be honest, I do not know how to get into the "Safe Mode"

There should be a separate Firefox link for that in the installation folder. In Windows it's in the "Mozilla Firefox" folder in the programs menu, in linux execute "firefox -safe-mode". (It is in fact the same on all OS's but I don't think linuxes get the link for it.)

-Kalle.

Comment 6

[Peter]

Whenever(i.e. every instance) I try to "Save page", Firefox hangs but will often "unhang after 4-5 minutes,sometimes more. Same problem in right-click "Save Target as.." for most files including jpegs. 

If I open the problem page in "Open this page with IE" option, the problems do not exist in IE., i.e. I am able to save the page or jpeg without a hang. Though I loathe IE, I have had to resort to viewing page in Firefox, but saving it through IE.  

This problem only began with v1.5- the previous versions gave me no problem. I am still running(blush here) Win98 on a 266MHz PII with 128MB RAM...

Help, please, Peter

Comment 7

[Guillermo Marraco]

similar bug: 283822. maybe the same bug.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

The information here so far is insufficient to let itself to testing. Closing invalid as there is nothing here to test. But if you see this problem using Firefox 2 or trunk build and give the URL then please reopen the bug. 

As for the aspect that little or nothing works while the "save as" is in progress, that would be bug 257121