Untrackable downloads in Seamonkey for Linux

[Zosimos]

Using Seamonkey 2.33.1 on a Debian 7 install, I have been trying to download something from Sourceforge (the latest .deb of gtk-gnutella since the repository version is very old) and I find I cannot control the download. The preferences are set to always ASK where you want to save a file when you download it. But I don't get the prompt. This works fine in the windows version. I use it all the time. But nothing happens in the Linux version. Instead, the prompt "Do you want to save this file?" just disappears and I see my connection in Gkrellm shows the data flow of downloading, but have no clue where the file is going. When my connection stops showing the activity of a download, there is no file on my desktop, in my downloads folder, or anywhere else I can find it.

[NanM]

Using Seamonkey 2.33.1 on a Debian 7 install,

Can't replicate your problem on a TahrPup, based on an Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS -which should be Debian enough for comparison.

I got the SM via the official Puppy repos and updated from within SM as provided by the Puppy package management routine; all pretty standard.

I went to the sourceforge gnutella downloads page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtk-gnutella/

It offered my SM a tar.bz2 download button, which eventually gave me the SM download dialog (I have DTA, so I get a few choices there - but the default DTA definitely shows the download directory I had already specified when setting SM up) and when I made the radio button choice to test for changing the download directory, the expected 'save' dialog in SM popped up, with all navigation open and the naming also open.
I observed network activity that appeared to be what I wanted.
When the download had completed I found the tarball as expected in the directory I'd sent it to.

EDIT: Made a duplicate test with all extensions *except* NoScript disabled. Not exactly Safe Mode, but I only disable NS when I can trust where I'm going.
Same result; download dialog is working and downloads from sourceforge are directed to the right place.

[therube]

Maybe you're running into something like, Bug 1176353 - Cannot Download Music from Amazon Music Library.
I'd think it odd if it was the issue?

But easy enough to test.
Change the ASK to 'Save files to', then see if the file downloaded.
(I [Windows] always use ASK & have never had any problem with sourceforge.)

[James]

When my connection stops showing the activity of a download, there is no file on my desktop, in my downloads folder, or anywhere else I can find it.

When done you can right-click the file in the download manager and select "Open Containing Folder" and it should open a window of your default filemanager at where the file is.

[truffle]

I can think of one possibility which is that you somehow associated the deb extension with some application and therefore when you download that file it goes to execute whatever app it is associated with, and given that to be installed a deb needs root privileges, it basically just fails silently.

You should run SM from the terminal and look at the output, also check in preferences->helper applications whether there is an association with debs.

Bye

[Zosimos]

The problem was that the downloads did not show up. I could open the download manager and nothing was there even though I could see the bandwidth being used on my connection. Now, after using 'always save to location' and getting it to work, and then switching back to always ask, it works properly. Something in the config must have been mis-coordinated in a really odd way.