Downloads from Emails will not open
I am running FF 17.0.1 on a Sony Vaio laptop with an Intel P7350 running Windows 7 Home Premium. I use Yahoo for my email client and until recently when I received an email with a PDF attachment I could save, or open the attachments. Recently, like a week ago, when I get an email with an attachment I can't do anything with it. If I save it and then try to open from the "download page" nothing happens. If I search for the attachment using the "search for programs or files" dialog box I can find a shortcut to the file but when I click on it it tells me it can't find it. And all I see are references to the shortcut and not the file itself. I have set the Application "Adobe Acrobat Document" to all the different possibilities and they all behave the same. If I switch users and open FF a different user everything works fine and it appears that the FF settings are the same. I can also use MS IExporer and everything works fine. ANY SUGGESTIONS?
Chosen solution
Finally found an answer! http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/749302
possible SOLUTION: Disable Virus Auto-check in Firefox!
In an empty address bar, copy/paste
about:config
and press Enter
confirm 'I'll be careful, I promise'
Where the cursor blinks (after 'Filter'), copy/paste
browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
you might get two lines as result. In the line only displaying 'browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone', double-click 'true', which will set the parameter to 'false'
close that window or tab.
Test if your Downloads window now behaves as it should by downloading a new file/ saving an image etc.
CAUTION: You just deactivated a security feature (that obviously is not coded well, causing an internal virus alert in Firefox running in certain Windows installations on specific computers , like Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on a mobo with an AMD Athlon 64 CPU). Please make sure you have installed a) WOT for Firefox http://www.mywot.com b) a Malware scanner for your OS, like Avast (free) or Kaspersky (fee) for Windows, or Sophos (free) or Kaspersky (fee) for Mac OS X
CREDITS: - 'Pointy130' for figuring this out for Firefox Aurora 8.0a2 http://tinyurl.com/7q8o6av - 'Rich' 'for 'Disable Automatic Virus Scan in Firefox 3 [How To]' http://tinyurl.com/6p22ne8
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (7)
Hi srf058, have you tried to create new "clean" FF profile (using parameter -p) and tried to open it from there?
Also when the download dialog appears (you may as well invoke it by ctrl+j) you can right click the downloaded file and choose to show the target destination. When it is opened in file browser, does the file open from there?
I haven't tried the new profile yet. It is next on the agenda. As for specifying destination I'll try your suggestion. Right now a dialog box opens asking if I want to open, save, etc. and I choose save. Although I have set up the default save location as desktop nothing appears there. In the past I believe Adobe was launched as a separate app rather than through the browser. Will play around later and leave a note. Thanks.!
Ok. The download manager is acting even though it may not be displayed - may not pop up. Through there you can be at least directed to the actual source destination of the file you have downloaded.
Good luck and keep me updated :D
Try to delete the mimeTypes.rdf file in the Firefox Profile Folder to reset all file actions.
Steps so far:
1. I a clean FF profile using the instructions in the KB. No difference. 2. When I open the download dialog box I am given the choice of "Open with" and a choice like "Adobe Reader", etc. or "Save File". If I choose "Open with" the app opens or the appropriate FF plug-in is launched. But I get a message "There was an error opening this file. The document cannot be found" (this is an Adobe example). If I save to computer and the "Downloads" box open showing the file with various options but the "Open" and "Open Containing folder" buttons are either greyed out or just don't work. Nothing happens.
If I then search for the file in the Windows search box it will show the file but I get an error message box with the title "Missing Shortcut" with instructions to "browse". But the file does not exist in any location I can find, i.e. "desktop" which I specified in the FF options, "Downloads" or ???
I can use IE to open, download, and view these files so it appears to be specific to FF and not the computer.
I tried this an it did seem to make any difference. My suspicion is that there is a problem with the download manager because I have the problem with all types of files, i.e. .pdf, .doc, .docx, xls, .exe. It seems that downloads are just not working.
Chosen Solution
Finally found an answer! http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/749302
possible SOLUTION: Disable Virus Auto-check in Firefox!
In an empty address bar, copy/paste
about:config
and press Enter
confirm 'I'll be careful, I promise'
Where the cursor blinks (after 'Filter'), copy/paste
browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
you might get two lines as result. In the line only displaying 'browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone', double-click 'true', which will set the parameter to 'false'
close that window or tab.
Test if your Downloads window now behaves as it should by downloading a new file/ saving an image etc.
CAUTION: You just deactivated a security feature (that obviously is not coded well, causing an internal virus alert in Firefox running in certain Windows installations on specific computers , like Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on a mobo with an AMD Athlon 64 CPU). Please make sure you have installed a) WOT for Firefox http://www.mywot.com b) a Malware scanner for your OS, like Avast (free) or Kaspersky (fee) for Windows, or Sophos (free) or Kaspersky (fee) for Mac OS X
CREDITS: - 'Pointy130' for figuring this out for Firefox Aurora 8.0a2 http://tinyurl.com/7q8o6av - 'Rich' 'for 'Disable Automatic Virus Scan in Firefox 3 [How To]' http://tinyurl.com/6p22ne8