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Update 27.0 causes downloads to go to the wrong location

  • 4 replies
  • 64 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Viridel

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I want downloads to go to my RAMdisk (not surprisingly, R:\), but since the update to v27, all downloads go to C:\Users\Me\Downloads. My Options are set correctly, I've double-checked my Profile location (I:\Firefox\Profiles), and all Bookmarks and Extensions are perfectly fine - it's just the download location that is messed up.

Is this a universal issue with v27 (unlikely) or has a fix been found (hopefully)?

I want downloads to go to my RAMdisk (not surprisingly, R:\), but since the update to v27, all downloads go to C:\Users\Me\Downloads. My Options are set correctly, I've double-checked my Profile location (I:\Firefox\Profiles), and all Bookmarks and Extensions are perfectly fine - it's just the download location that is messed up. Is this a universal issue with v27 (unlikely) or has a fix been found (hopefully)?

Chosen solution

hello Viridel, i think it's a general regression in firefox 27 that files won't download into a root drive. please try to create a subfolder (like R:\Downloads) and set this as default location for downloads...

edit: also see bug #958899

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (4)

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Current Firefox versions remember the download directory based upon the URL, so if the URL changes then the default folder may be chosen if there hasn't been selected a download folder before for that server.
You can disable this feature to remember the download directory via the Boolean pref browser.download.lastDir.savePerSite on the about:config page.
The browser.download.lastDir.savePerSite pref doesn't exist by default (it is a hidden pref), so you need to create it.
Create a new Boolean pref with the name browser.download.lastDir.savePerSite and set the value to false.

You can delete the content-prefs.sqlite file in the Profile Folder to only remove settings stored in this file and keep the exceptions that are stored in permissions.sqlite that would be lost if you clear the "Site Preferences" via Clear Recent History.

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

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I saw this in another help file (I believe it was for v14), and it didn't apply to me, given that I download 8-10 files from a specific site every day, and that was the site I was having the issue with file location (as well as every other site, for that matter). I entered the string anyway, as I would want EVERY download going to the correct location - unfortunately there was no change in the result.

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Chosen Solution

hello Viridel, i think it's a general regression in firefox 27 that files won't download into a root drive. please try to create a subfolder (like R:\Downloads) and set this as default location for downloads...

edit: also see bug #958899

Modified by philipp

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"regression" is right. I can see not wanting to download to the root of a system disk, but a logical drive... Unfortunate.

But your solution is 100% accurate, and I thank you both for your time and speedy replies!

    • Read the bug report, and this says it all:

The bug is present on Firefox 27 final. Firefox 27 cannot save files to any root directory by default, except for Windows drive root directory. Firefox 26 and earlier could. Lots of people will find out the hard way about this bug starting today. I hope it gets fixed and 27.0.1 gets released as soon as possible with this bug fixed in it.


Yup [;-)

Modified by Viridel