476380 - "Ask where to save file" remembers location - if this is removed (e.g memory stick) the dialog doesn't open

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 429827

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Martin Jost]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); de; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5 

The downloads are configured to use the download manager and ask where to store the file. 
But when trying to download a file, FF doesn't ask for a location and doesn't seem to download.
After some trying around, I finally found that FF remembers the last used path and gets into this problem, if this isn't available any more. (e.g. an meanwhile unplugged memory stick)

I saw the problem on both FF 3.0.4 and 3.0.5.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Configure the downloads to use the download manager and to ask where to store the file. 
2. Plug in a memory stick so it is available for downloading a file to
3. Download a file
4. When asked for the location, choose one on the memory stick (in my case drive "g:") and download the file
5. Exit FF
6. "Savely remove" the memory stick and unplug it
7. Restart FF
8. Try to download a file
Actual Results:  
No "Save as" dialog is shown. The download doesn't seem to start.

Expected Results:  
The "Save as" dialog should open, allowing to give the location where to store the file. After confirmation the download should start.
If the old drive letter isn't present any more, the dialog should start out with e.g. the list of all drives or maybe the FF install dir, but not just not come up at all.

Here is my procedure when I further investigated:
1 Again plug the memory stick
2 Try to save now; the dialog comes up.The location it starts, is the one the last file was saved. (In my case "g:" where the memory stick got mapped.)
3 Choose a built-in hard drive to save the file to, e.g. c:\temp
4 Close FF
4 Safely remove the memory stick and unplug it
5 Restart FF
6 Try to download and save a file
7 FF chooses the last used location again (this time e.g. c:\temp)

Note that just choosing a new location in step 3 and then "cancel" the dialog will not change the starting location of the dialog in step 6&7; I actually had to store a file in the new location.

Notes:
- Bug 472562 - Stuck in "Save As" window after ejecting a mounted drive.
  seems to be similar, but refers to a Mac and has details missing. Feel free to merge these if appropriate.
- I had found page in the FF knowledge base, which seemed to describe this behaviour as design decision (unfortunately I managed to close the tab and now I'm unable to find the URL again; I will add it, if I find it again)
IHMO this behaviour is a bug nevertheless, which should be fixed. I completely failed at it on first try. (Played with the options in the download settings; tried "about: config" but missed the entry) Only on the second try - by pure chance - I had the memory stick plugged again and was able to see, what is going on.