Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How to make Firefox to not use /tmp directory for saving *part files during downloads?

  • 2 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by LMA73

LMA73
LMA73
more options

Firefox: 52.5.2 (64-bit) OS: 4.9.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.51-1 (2017-09-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux

/etc/fstab entry: tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid,size=100M 0 0

Firefox saves *part files in /tmp directory no matter what settings of file destination are chosen. User might configure FF so it should ask where to save file or choose a specific directory but it doesn't matter to FF during saving of *part file. There are no entries in about:config related to /tmp directory.

FF wrongly assumes that *part files should be saved in /tmp directory. FF wrongly assumes that /tmp is the place with enough disk space so all downloads of files larger than /tmp fail.

How to change or prevent this behaviour?

Firefox: 52.5.2 (64-bit) OS: 4.9.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.51-1 (2017-09-28) x86_64 GNU/Linux /etc/fstab entry: tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid,size=100M 0 0 Firefox saves *part files in /tmp directory no matter what settings of file destination are chosen. User might configure FF so it should ask where to save file or choose a specific directory but it doesn't matter to FF during saving of *part file. There are no entries in about:config related to /tmp directory. FF wrongly assumes that *part files should be saved in /tmp directory. FF wrongly assumes that /tmp is the place with enough disk space so all downloads of files larger than /tmp fail. How to change or prevent this behaviour?

Chosen solution

Try to set the TMPDIR environment variable to a folder in your home directory.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Chosen Solution

Try to set the TMPDIR environment variable to a folder in your home directory.

Modified by cor-el

LMA73
LMA73 Question owner
more options

Thank you for your answer. It was a pleasure to look at nicely coded FF :)

I did some more testing: with new user account a freshly started FF behaves correctly. So it must be somewhere in configuration of my account :(

Well, it also works in my account properly. Maybe reconfiguring and restarting FF helped.

Thank you for your help.