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[10.0.7 ESR] Temporary documents are read-only again, even with the "browser.helperAppsbrowser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit" parameter set on "false". Why?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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We currently updated from the old 3.6 Firefox to the ESR version 10.0.7. Eversince we've used Firefox we've had a problem with documents being read-only when downloaded temporarily. But we've found the solution by finding the entry

browser.helperAppsbrowser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit

in the about:config and setting it on false. Documents were writeable again, and the world was full of fluffy unicorns and rainbows.

But that doesn't seem to be sufficient when using Firefox 10.0.7 ESR, since that entry is set but all our documents are read-only again. We checked that it is a Firefox issue by deactivating all add-ons to be sure, that it's the browser itself that makes that setting.

What is the cause and how can we change it back to them being writeable again?

-- Andrea

We currently updated from the old 3.6 Firefox to the ESR version 10.0.7. Eversince we've used Firefox we've had a problem with documents being read-only when downloaded temporarily. But we've found the solution by finding the entry browser.helperAppsbrowser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit in the about:config and setting it on false. Documents were writeable again, and the world was full of fluffy unicorns and rainbows. But that doesn't seem to be sufficient when using Firefox 10.0.7 ESR, since that entry is set but all our documents are read-only again. We checked that it is a Firefox issue by deactivating all add-ons to be sure, that it's the browser itself that makes that setting. What is the cause and how can we change it back to them being writeable again? -- Andrea

All Replies (4)

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It is best to use "Save as" to save a file that was opened in another application like a text editor to save the updated file under a different name and not in the %temp% folder if you want to make changes to the file and to make sure not to lose the changes.
It is not guaranteed that you keep such files after closing Firefox.

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While that may be best practice, it doesn't help in this case.

We use a system that creates documents by using templates and filling datafields with individual values based on the case that is being worked on. These documents are saved in the system and are only displayed for information purpose.

Still some of these documents have to be altered. The system offers this possibility by letting you edit the temp file and load it back up, so that the altered document is saved in the system. The document gets a unique file name in the temp folder which includes numbers so that the system can identify which document in the system should be overwritten by the altered version.

Since the documents aren't meant to be on the local harddrive anyway but in the system, "save as..." is no real solution in this case.

Modified by kriegervz

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Okay, we know now why it didn't work. And it is really simple when you've found it out. As written in the first post, we used the "browser.helperAppsbrowser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit "-entry to control whether the documents are read-only (true) or not (false).

Still, what we didn't know, the entry changed between versions and is now the "browser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit"-entry.

So basically we just made the wrong entry. After replacing the old with the new ones, documents are writeable again.

Hope that helps anyone who may have struggled with that, too.

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browser.helperAppsbrowser.helperApps.deleteTempFileOnExit is probably the result of a failed pasting effort with the extra (double)"browser.helperApps" at the start of the pref name and should never have worked.