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Infinite number of duplicate download windows

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  • 0 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I just spent 15 minutes browsing and downloading a lot of images. When I was done I looked at my downloads folder and saw only half of them there. I checked the download history in firefox, and couldn't see some files. They were not queued or in progress. They weren't in the download list at all.

I reproduced this. I downloaded an image again. Right click, save as, click save. Then that image doesn't appear in the download history.

I tried some variations. Hitting enter instead of clicking save. Opening the image in a new tab and using ctrl-s.

Still, no image in the download history or on disk.

I quit firefox and re-openned. Still the file didn't appear on disk or in the download history.

Then I kept trying, and I got a second issue, which I think is related.

Often when I save an image, instead of one window popping up asking me where to save it, I get a second window popping up ontop of that, then a third, then a fourth. All ontop of each other. All asking the same thing. They take the focus, so it's not possible to interact with the main firefox window to continue browsing.

Sometimes if I hit enter literally 50 times then it will save the same image repeatedly, and eventually I can go back to browsing.

Sometimes there's more than 50 popup windows (my hunch is more than 100). My only solution then is to quit firefox forcefully. Which is annoying if I have state in other tabs that I don't want to lose.

This has happened many times over many weeks. It only happens on some file saves. I can't figure out why it happens on some, not others. (Right click > save, and also ctrl-s, they both do the same thing.)

This form won't let me attach a screen recording. Only screenshots. That's annoying because you can't really see the behavior from the screenshot. But I'll try. See the dark black border outside the download dialogue? That's normally a very faint transparent shadow. But because there's so many duplicate windows all exactly ontop of each other, those multiple transparent shadows have become opaque.

What you can't see from a static screenshot is that I could see each window appear ontop of the other. If I try to select the filename text and edit it, very quickly another window appears ontop with the default filename again. I can see the Firefox icon in the Gnome bar on the left shaking every time a new window pops up.

(Hmm, it looks like I can't *upload* screenshots either. I click browse, select a file, and then it doesn't get uploaded.)

I'm on Ubuntu 22.10 with Wayland.

I don't know if this issue is a bug in Firefox, or in Gnome. I've only seen this behavior with Firefox in Gnome. Not Firefox on another DE/OS. And not any other application in Gnome. This behavior has been intermittent since I bought this laptop and installed Ubuntu about a month ago.

I just spent 15 minutes browsing and downloading a lot of images. When I was done I looked at my downloads folder and saw only half of them there. I checked the download history in firefox, and couldn't see some files. They were not queued or in progress. They weren't in the download list at all. I reproduced this. I downloaded an image again. Right click, save as, click save. Then that image doesn't appear in the download history. I tried some variations. Hitting enter instead of clicking save. Opening the image in a new tab and using ctrl-s. Still, no image in the download history or on disk. I quit firefox and re-openned. Still the file didn't appear on disk or in the download history. Then I kept trying, and I got a second issue, which I think is related. Often when I save an image, instead of one window popping up asking me where to save it, I get a second window popping up ontop of that, then a third, then a fourth. All ontop of each other. All asking the same thing. They take the focus, so it's not possible to interact with the main firefox window to continue browsing. Sometimes if I hit enter literally 50 times then it will save the same image repeatedly, and eventually I can go back to browsing. Sometimes there's more than 50 popup windows (my hunch is more than 100). My only solution then is to quit firefox forcefully. Which is annoying if I have state in other tabs that I don't want to lose. This has happened many times over many weeks. It only happens on some file saves. I can't figure out why it happens on some, not others. (Right click > save, and also ctrl-s, they both do the same thing.) This form won't let me attach a screen recording. Only screenshots. That's annoying because you can't really see the behavior from the screenshot. But I'll try. See the dark black border outside the download dialogue? That's normally a very faint transparent shadow. But because there's so many duplicate windows all exactly ontop of each other, those multiple transparent shadows have become opaque. What you can't see from a static screenshot is that I could see each window appear ontop of the other. If I try to select the filename text and edit it, very quickly another window appears ontop with the default filename again. I can see the Firefox icon in the Gnome bar on the left shaking every time a new window pops up. (Hmm, it looks like I can't *upload* screenshots either. I click browse, select a file, and then it doesn't get uploaded.) I'm on Ubuntu 22.10 with Wayland. I don't know if this issue is a bug in Firefox, or in Gnome. I've only seen this behavior with Firefox in Gnome. Not Firefox on another DE/OS. And not any other application in Gnome. This behavior has been intermittent since I bought this laptop and installed Ubuntu about a month ago.

All Replies (5)

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To what location do you save those files ? Note that Snap has restrictions when it comes to accessing directories outside the home directory.

You can try Firefox from the official Mozilla server if you currently use a version from the repositories of your Linux distribution to see if it behaves differently.

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I'm trying to save to ~/Downloads, which is inside the home directory. So the snap thing shouldn't be an issue.

I get this behavior with my extensions turned off.

But I also see a slightly different, but related issue in Chromium. So I suspect it's a bug in Nautilus or Gnome.

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The issue happens in Firefox with troubleshooting mode enabled.

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Firefox might still try to save files to /tmp/ or another directory, so you can still try Firefox from the Mozilla server.