Problem Downloading With ANY Browser

[Knil]

Whenever a site uses a redirect for downloads, I can't download. VersionTrack for example. If I choose "Download Now", it loads the next page, "your download should begin", then it unloads [?] the page, and goes back to the page with the "Download Now" link in the fist place! This is the problem in Internet Explorer AND Safari, so I assume Mozilla won't solve the issue. The only way I can download is if the site enables right-clicking to "download linked file to disc". Help! Please reply here, and/or e-mail me knil@sbcglobal.net

Thanks!

[Zammy-Sam]

Hi Knil and welcome to the forum.
It would be good to know if you are on panther or still on jaguar and if you have the most recent updates.
If so, you could try this: open home/Library/Preferences and move the file 'com.apple.Safari.plist' to your Desktop (don't copy). Restart safari and try again.

[Knil]

Thanks for the welcome!
I'm running OS 10.3.4
I moved "com.apple.Safari.plist" to the desktop, and unfortunately it didn't solve the problem. Any other ideas?

[Cheryl]

Do you have cookies enabled? Have you checked your download folder?

In the Window menu of Safari select Downloads. Does it show a list of your downloads? If it does, That means you have indeed downloaded the file. Click on the magnifying glass will show you where the file is.


Trash the com.apple.Safari.plist file, empty the trash. Go to the Safari menu and select preferences. Make sure you have cookies enabled, and a download folder selected.

[auricle]

Now here's an odd one (to resurrect this thread).

For the past few weeks, Safari and Mozilla under 10.3.5 have been acting rather strangely in a manner not unlike that which Knil described.

When clicking on a link to a file (something like http://www.example.com/downloads/example.tar.gz, the browsers initiate the connection (as one would expect). Then, inexplicably, Script Editor (Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.app) is launched. After that, the download fails.

This would also happen if the page used a redirect to a file's URL.

I read this thread and trashed Safari and Mozilla's preferences. Now I find that:
Mozilla's behaviour is unchanged for clicking on direct links or being forwarded;
Safari now starts a download when clicking on a direct link but launches Script Editor and fails to download when redirected to a file.

Double-checked with MSIE. No problems there.

Mozilla doesn't give away too many clues, but Safari shows in its status bar and activity window:
"(whatever the URL is) loaded 0 of x bytes"
then
"Failed to open page" (Activity Window says "cancelled")

If a direct link to the file is displayed, Control-click and "Download Linked File As..." works (although the redirect, launching of Script Editor and failure still occur even as the download is proceeding by that alternative method).

If the link is to an intermediate script which displays nothing, I am unable to download it.

If anyone else has any insights or fixes, I'd be very pleased to know.

Thanks in advance,
David