Can't download this file

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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BipolarBear
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Post by BipolarBear »

rstat1 wrote:I'm having the same problem, but I have AV software installed and turned on. I'm running ClamWin AV on Vista SP1

Have you tried setting Launching applications and unsafe files to Prompt (recommended) (or Enable (not secure))? I run WinXP so I'm not sure it's exactly the same under Vista.
Last edited by BipolarBear on April 19th, 2008, 11:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
rstat1
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Post by rstat1 »

BipolarBear wrote:
rstat1 wrote:I'm having the same problem, but I have AV software installed and turned on. I'm running ClamWin AV on Vista SP1

Have you tried setting Launching applications and unsafe files to Prompt (recommended) (or Enable (not secure))? I run WinXP so I'm not sure it's exactly the same under Vista.


Yep just did that, and nothing changed.
bagum
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Post by bagum »

Yea this is the huge bug in the firefox(In WindowsXP, and may be on any Windows platform). And it is ported in nightly builds and in FF4alpha. It is disscussed in russian forum (forum.mozilla-russia.org) and we couldn't find a solution.
And this problem is related NOT with save or execution of binary files, but with saving of other content, such as graphic files or a web-pages, torrent files. People who search some information in the web saving hundred of pages a day deals with this problem.
And the error message is :"Blocked: Download may contain a virus or spyware " (or a localized message).
What people in russian forum have tried(I describe my config):
1. Turn off(make less secured) IE security (including "Launching applications and unsafe files to Prompt (recommended) (or Enable (not secure)", but it only solves the problem with downloading of executive files).
2. Firewall is turned off as a service (some people tried to make an exclusion for FF3b5\FF4a - no changes).
3. browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone -> false, in about:config.
4. Antispyware and Antiviral software are turned off (some people tried to uninstall it - no changes).
5. Reboot Windows after doing all that.

And it anyway shows the message "Blocked: Download may contain a virus or spyware " but the problem is shown no so often to find it it happens spontaneously.
We also found that this problem is more often happens with russian full filenames (Russian symbols and spaces are in full file name), and for example if THE SAME PAGE will be saved with the full name "D:\tmp\info.html" IT WILL BE SAVED SUCCESSFULLY . So it seems to me that the problem may be with encoding. I would say that firefox trying to save file, system error arises and it thinks that some Antiviral software blocked the saving.

Does anybody have the same problem in English version or in other localization?
rstat1
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Post by rstat1 »

I do, I have the same problem with file downloads since I think Beta 1 or 2 of Firefox 3.
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Christian Scorsese
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Post by Christian Scorsese »

I never had that happen to me, and I download a lot of stuff. I don't think it's a problem with Firefox, probably an issue elsewhere, though after reading this topic, I can't say for sure what it could be.
bomfog
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Post by bomfog »

Does anyone not cured by the "Launching applications and unsafe files" change have "Open files based on content, not file extension" enabled? A content-sniffing problem would maybe explain bagum's problem with graphics files and what-not?
egoego
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Post by egoego »

BipolarBear
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Post by BipolarBear »

bagum wrote:And this problem is related NOT with save or execution of binary files, but with saving of other content, such as graphic files or a web-pages, torrent files.

I am guessing that you meant to say "not only with save or execution of executable files". The problem occurs with binary and ASCII files, excutable and otherwise.

Christian Scorsese wrote:I never had that happen to me, and I download a lot of stuff. I don't think it's a problem with Firefox, probably an issue elsewhere, though after reading this topic, I can't say for sure what it could be.

You don't have the problem, so it can't be Firefox at fault? It is Firefox. It doesn't happen with Firefox 1 or 2, it does happen with Firefox 3, it occurs with files that Firefox is downloading, and it doesn't happen with any other browsers.

Besides that, according to this bug, the problem has been identified and corrected. In Firefox.

P.S. I used to live in Hilton. The village by that name that rubs against Lake Ontario that is.
nascent
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Post by nascent »

BipolarBear wrote:On my system, it appears that the one setting that directly causes this issue is Launching applications and unsafe files, under the Miscellaneous category for the Internet Zone (though the zone will vary, I suppose, depending on the site you are attempting to download from--if Firefox checks that).

If Launching applications and unsafe files is set to Prompt (recommended) or Enable (not secure), I can download files just fine in Firefox 3.0b5, without the aforementioned error occurring. If I set it to Disable, I get the (misleading and inappropriate) Blocked: Download may contain a virus or spyware --- [domain name] error upon attempting to download files.

And again, this behavior is irrespective of the two aforementioned settings that appear under the Downloads category.

Exactly the solution that sorted the problem for me, thank you very much BipolarBear.


I am not sure that I'm happy Firefox uses the IE Security settings (yes I know it's meant to be system-wide but it doesn't really work that way). I trust Firefox much more over IE simply because I use NoScript with it disabling everything anyway. I do NOT want 2 levels of the same security, and NoScript is much easier to use as it's a click to change the security for a site out of the status bar.
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

FWIW the bug was fixed in the May, 2nd nightly. So RC1 should work.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=430566
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Alice
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Post by Alice »

I just updated to Firefox 3 RC1 on Windows XP sp2:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008051206 Firefox/3.0

I still get an error downloading executable files if Launching applications and unsafe files (under Internet Options, Internet Zone, Miscellaneous) is set to "Disabled".

With Fx3 RC1 the error message is: "This download has been blocked by your Security Zone Policy"
The Fx3 Beta 5 error message was : "Blocked: Download may contain a virus or spyware"

Documented here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_sav ... _-_Windows
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kliu0x52
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Post by kliu0x52 »

Alice, it looks like you're hitting this problem. <del>Do you want to file a bug about this?</del>

Edit: This is the expected behavior. If you set "launch" to disable, saving EXE files will be disabled, even in IE. Does IE let you download the file? If not, then the problem is with Microsoft's poor choice of wording.
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Alice
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Post by Alice »

I thought trolly meant that the original issue (downloading executable files) was fixed in Fx3 RC1 and I wanted to clarify that it wasn't.

Test link: http://port25.technet.com/videos/downlo ... plugin.exe

With the "Launching applications and unsafe files" option set to Disabled, IE7 gives the error:
Security Alert
Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded.


If I set the option to "Prompt (Recommended)", the IE7 message is
File download - Security Warning
Do you want to run or save this file?

...with buttons to Run, Save or Cancel.

The problem is that IE includes the option to run the file as well as save it, in the same download prompt. Some websites recommend disabling this option to "lock down" Internet Explorer (example) and Firefox users may have done so in the past, never expecting to use IE or that a future version of Firefox may honor that setting.
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kliu0x52
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Post by kliu0x52 »

But IE will refuse to let you save the file if it is set to disable, right? If so, then the Firefox behavior is correct, even if it does "break" things for people who used to rely on the incorrect Firefox behavior to "lock down" IE without affecting Firefox.

TBH, I don't see the point of setting it to disable. Do people often accidentally click "Run" instead of "Save"? And even if you do accidentally click "Run", you still get another confirmation prompt after the download has completed. With EXE files, since they are executed externally outside of the browser's process (unlike ActiveX, which is one place where IE would be more insecure), there is nothing that makes saving/running an EXE from IE any different than from Firefox, so to "lock down" IE but not to do the same to Firefox makes no sense. The recommendation on that website you linked is faulty.

BTW, the bug trolly referred to was about an error in implementation that resulted in the policy blocking not working (and failing with false positives with very long file names).
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

There are two issues. The original one which is fixed with the bug.
And the second that an "IE" setting blocks download in firefox. Which can be regarded as "unexpected behaviour". I don't know if a bug report this late can lead to a change in behaviour. You can file a bug and set it to major to get some attention.
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
Constitution says: One man, one vote. Supreme court says: One dollar, one vote.
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