439234 - Firefox is unable to initiate Explorer interactions

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 429827

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect)

Description

[Dan Chowdhury]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

This bug is extremely frustrating, and involves firefox being unable to open any windows that involve interacting with explorer.

This means I can't use functions such as "Save Link As", "Save Page As", or "Browse" for a default download folder location.

I'm not sure if this is the same bug or not, but it also renders my ability to download files useless.  I am not able to use "Save Link As", as mentioned above, but also pressing the "Save File" in a Download dialog does nothing whatsoever.

I am happy to help debug or anything if you contact me, the bug is extremely annoying.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
This happened once, and when I came here to report it, it disappeared.  Its now returned. 

When it does happen, its fairly consistent and restarting Firefox does not fix it.



This is on a Windows 2008 machine, but its practically identical to Vista in this case.
It may be related to another Vista/2008 bug I'm experiencing, check here for details: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general&tid=b4ebe2b2-4d34-43ec-b9e9-09d66bec2115&cat=en_US_045A27CB-CDB9-49DB-B63D-0E65F352DD13&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

Everything else is pretty much default firefox 3. I have 3 Extensions installed, Gmail Notifier, FireFTP and Adblock Plus - none of which I think should cause this problem.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

It seems that you have a system bug, did you try to select a different default location as save target in the preferences ?
What is displayed if you open a cmd-window and enter "echo %homepath%" (without "") ?

Comment 2

[Dan Chowdhury]

It seems it is heavily related to a system bug (see additional comments), related to my system desktop.

After playing around, I can now download files by "Always ask me where to save files" (again), but "Save Page As" still doesn't work.  Setting Firefox to autodownload to a certain directory is currently set to Desktop, and I am unable to change this.

"echo %homepath% prints "\Users\Administrator\". My environmental variables appear to be working, I believe its the Desktop path that's malfunctioning.  Again see the link in additional information.

I would still say this is a major bug as it reduces a significant part of functionality.  I can also accept that it can be considered low priority as far as you developers go, since its closely related to the OS bug.  However, it might be worth looking at because I can't seem to override this bug.

Also I forgot to mention this also seems to happen in Firefox 2.

I would be happy if something could be done about this, but I can understand if you don't feel its relevant to firefox (all my other applications are working as a result of this OS bug, however), since it pretty much is due to the OS.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

type about:config as URL, enter "desktop" as filter and change the paths to another location. (dir, lastdir, downloadir)
If that doesn't work you can also try to rename the file downloads.sqlite and if that doesn't work localstgore.rdf (that will reset firefox window settings) in your profile folder if Firefox is not running.
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder.

Comment 4

[Dan Chowdhury]

I have also experienced this bug on a separate occasion when the last download directory does not exist anymore.

I inserted a removable storage device, saved a file directly to it, then after removing the device, firefox would no longer open the download dialog box.  It should at least revert to a "safe zone" is the target location doesnt exist.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

That is bug 429827, marking as dupe