Update

(Comment added  by a moderator ~ J99 )

Some problem seem to be resolve by NOT using old bookmarks.
Instead use this link mail.yahoo.com as suggested in philipp's post under /questions/978924#answer-510272

Hello, Can you please confirm if this similar to other users who have reported issues downloading attachments from Yahoo mail. Can you please try this with Firefox in the safe mode to see if that helps.

1. Firefox stopped downloading attachments - #971042
2. Firefox won't download files - #978766

Based on your confirmation we will check this and raise a Firefox bug if required.

Thank you for your assistance

Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

• On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
• On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
• Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

Thank you

Sign out of Yahoo, sign back in, then try again. Worked for me.

Sorry I do not use Yahoo and so do not see this problem. There are a few questions that may help

• You mention pdf files, are these the only attachments you have problems with from Yahoo
  1. Please try with text and jpg image attachments do they open ok, and do they download ok with Firefox ?
  2. Here is a site with a small pdf on it, are you able to view that and download it with Firefox ?
     Site http://stlab.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/File:Test.pdf
     File http://stlab.adobe.com/wiki/images/d/d3/Test.pdf

Please try the above tests with both Adobe and Firefox's built in viewer. See Also

• View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer
• View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer
• Use Adobe Reader to view PDF files in Firefox
• What to do if you can't download or save files

• I note
  • Another browser does work ok; in this case IE; when downloading pdf attachments in Yahoo emails.
  • Per the information aside you have the Adobe pdf plugin installed for Firefox to use.
  • You did not include the preferences list when posting the question. Did you have some problem using that option or did you not try to provide that information ?

Please also list the security related software that you are using. Firewall, AV, adblockers etc.

I suspect filing a bug may be a bit premature at this point. We just do not have enough information. (Unless some other contributor has already managed to reproduce this issue, or intends filing and then assigning the bug to herself ? ) but the above information will give us a better idea of what you are and are not able to do.

You may be interested in following related threads mentioned already, and any threads linked from them to see if progress is made in them. (You may see the answer yourself before someone gets the time to update this thread)

Firefox suddently stopped downloading email attachments. /questions/971042
firefox won't download files    https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/978766

John99, my issue with attachments in Yahoo mail was across the board. I couldn't open or download PDFs, MS docs, Word Perfect wpds.

What was peculiar was that I COULD open all attachments in Firefox Safe Mode, but could not do so when I manually disabled all FF extensions to troubleshoot whether an extension was causing the problem, and then re-started.

Attachments would open in Chrome and in IE.

Hi Walter, We are making good progress here, and should be able to resolve your issue. Firefox's safemode does more than just disable extensions. so please follow my suggestions from the other thread you posted in /questions/971042#answer-506953including using the speciallink in that post to start your own thread. Thanks.

i also have this problem of opening pdfs in yahoo mail (BT). still will not open in safe mode. test page pdf from the link above works fine.

BTW the same pdfs open no problem when using safari.

draco888, does it work when you access yahoo mail through this link?: https://mail.yahoo.com/

Philipp, yes it does work through the link you provided. have also defragged in the meantime dont know whether that would have made any difference though i doubt it.

whats the difference through your link?

i'm not sure as to what exactly is going on, but it looks like yahoo has changed something on their server that makes certain old url formats dysfunctional - at least quite a number of other users have reported that... so if you have a bookmark for yahoo mail, change its address to the generic https://mail.yahoo.com/, which should redirect you to the current & working url

philipp, that makes sense as I am using a very old bookmark which even BTYahoo said has been updated but I have continued using it since it still seemed to work.

Thanks for your help!

Philipp,

that is definitely the problem, have tested both, old url will not download, new one does.

great, thanks for reporting back with your findings!