Score:2

Ubuntu

Firefox unable to download or upload files

Mr Felix U

3/17/24, 9:31 AM

My firefox is not saving downloads. The download location is simply ~/Downloads and chrome for instance happily saves in there. Oddly, if I "download" a PDF from google drive, the firefox sprouts a new tab and shows me the downloaded PDF. But anything else doesn't seem to work. This even extends to "print to file" - it offers the "save as pdf" option but then does not go any further when pressing the "Save" button.

It is also not letting me upload files, e.g. attachments for webmail.

The "about firefox" info says version 111.0 (64-bit), Mozilla Firefox Snap for Ubuntu, canonical-002-1.0

This is on Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS, 64-bit, with GNOME 42.5

Thanks for suggestions so far. I have tried:

uninstalling firefox using apt and snap: sudo apt remove firefox; sudo snap remove firefox; rm -rf ~/.mozilla ~/snap/firefox. Then I installed fresh with sudo snap install firefox
refreshing Firefox
verifying the snap connections, with snap connections | grep -e home -e "personal-files" -e "removable-media" which all seemed in order, giving home firefox:home :home, personal-files firefox:dot-mozilla-firefox :personal-files, and removable-media firefox:removable-media :removable-media
using Private Browsing

Still no good. Any other ideas?

679

1 + 12

firefox

downloads

files

FedKad

3/17/24, 9:43 AM

The snap version of Firefox is unable to save anything outside for `$HOME` directory, so it _should not have any problems_ saving into `~/Downloads`, but it ___will___ have problems saving into `/tmp`. BTW, you question is not clear: You say you uninstalled _Firefox_, but still using its snap version.

Mr Felix U

3/17/24, 9:52 AM

Thanks @FedKad - I have set the downloads location back to `$HOME/Downloads`, still no use. Yes, to try to have a clean start I did `sudo apt remove firefox` and `sudo snap remove firefox` as well as `rm -rf ~.mozilla $HOME/snap/firefox`. Then I installed with `sudo snap install firefox`

Diogo Constantino

3/17/24, 10:35 AM

@MrFelixU have you verified the snap connections? You can list them with: snap connections | grep -e home -e "personal-files" -e "removable-media"

Mr Felix U

3/17/24, 10:55 AM

@DiogoConstantino not sure what I'm looking for - I've run the command and I see connections for firefox under all those 3 headings: `home firefox:home :home`, `personal-files firefox:dot-mozilla-firefox :personal-files`, and `removable-media firefox:removable-media :removable-media`

FedKad

3/17/24, 11:03 AM

@MrFelixU please [edit] your question and add ***all*** your comments into your original Question. Comments may be deleted in the future. The content of the Question is what matters.

FedKad

3/17/24, 11:13 AM

Please, try ***Help → More troubleshooting information → Refresh Firefox*** tool.

Diogo Constantino

3/17/24, 12:31 PM

I was suspicious that some of these could be missing, and could somehow be related, but it appears they're not missing, so at this point, I'm sorry but don't know how else I can help.

FedKad

3/18/24, 10:11 AM

You can try with a newly created Linux user.

Mr Felix U

3/26/24, 9:23 AM

@FedKad Same again - I made a new user, logged in, started firefox, tried to print to file. Nothing :-(

GChuf

4/15/24, 3:52 PM

Anything in `/var/log/syslog`? Or firefox logs (don't know where they are, maybe `~/.mozilla/firefox/`, or somewhere under `/var/log/`)?

Arth Mane

4/18/24, 5:37 AM

Maybe you should try to update the package or if it is not working try reinstalling the package through Snap Store (GUI) or with the terminal.

Mr Felix U

4/24/24, 6:37 AM

Thanks everyone for trying to help. Good news is that it's now working ok again without any special interventions, after a few weeks and many rounds of `sudo apt dist-upgrade` and `sudo snap refresh`. Bad news is I can't tell why it happened or help anyone else who experiences this.

Score:1

Ubuntu

Milo Moisson

4/21/24, 8:53 AM

I switched from the Firefox snap to the official Mozilla apt repository 3 months ago. You can find the PPA installation instructions on this article from OMG! Ubuntu

The major problem I have with snap installations is that snaps are sandboxed for security, but this becomes very annoying when trying to access files on your disk (e.g. Firefox). I believe there is a way to configure snap's permissions (called connections), but I didn't find a way to correctly configure it.

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