Arch Linux

zelurker

Member

Registered: 2020-06-27

Posts: 17

[Solved] firfefox doesn't show its file picker anymore

Found a few similar posts like there : https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=245527 but no solution yet.

So symptoms :
right clicking on the firefox logo which appears when you launch firefox and choosing "open in new tab" has no reaction.
When downloading a file, the "what to do" dialog appears, I choose "save as", it doesn't show any file selector, but the download starts anyway, but without being monitored by firefox, I just see a .part file growing in the default download location, that's all. If I quit firefox at that point the download is stopped without any warning and the .part file deleted.

I just get this line about zeitgeist in .xsession-errors when the file picker is supposed to appear : ** (zeitgeist-datahub:5123): WARNING **: 16:46:55.432: downloads-directory-provider.vala:120: Couldn't process /home/manu/Downloads/ieIKaojk.zip: Error when getting information for file “/home/manu/Downloads/ieIKaojk.zip”: No such file or directory

It's a standard xorg install using gtk for the file picker usually, I checked xdg-desktop-portal and xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, they are installed and everything seems fine.

I tried downgrading firefox, no effect. I tried removing zeitgeist, which obliges to remove cairo-dock-plug-ins, it broke some other things, but didn't help for this problem.
So no idea for now, any help ?
I tried with gedit to check with a simpler gtk applilcation : it works, no problem, it shows the file selector when saving.

So no idea...

Oh yeah I also tried
GTK_USE_PORTAL=0 firefox
same result, no file picker

edit : found the solution ! It was windows again, even here : I booted windows to check something a while ago, and when I tried to reboot, it stayed an incredibly long time on its screen with the dots turning around. I don't know how long it lasted but in the end, fed up, I just turned the computer off. Problem is that windows partitions turned to read-only because of this. And the last place where I saved a file from linux was on such a partition. When it returned to normal read-write, the problem disappeared and I recovered the file picker !

It's still a very bad way to handle this kind of error for firefox, but I am glad this is fixed!

Last edited by zelurker (2026-05-02 18:43:51)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,543

Re: [Solved] firfefox doesn't show its file picker anymore

\o/
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

[windows] stayed an incredibly long time on its screen with the dots turning around. I don't know how long it lasted but in the end, fed up, I just turned the computer off.

PSA: "Don't do that" - windows is probably executing updates or whatever, it's annoying AF and can easily take 30-60 minutes but cold rebooting out of that can completely trash windows.

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zelurker

Member

Registered: 2020-06-27

Posts: 17

Re: [Solved] firfefox doesn't show its file picker anymore

\o/
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

Done.

[windows] stayed an incredibly long time on its screen with the dots turning around. I don't know how long it lasted but in the end, fed up, I just turned the computer off.

PSA: "Don't do that" - windows is probably executing updates or whatever, it's annoying AF and can easily take 30-60 minutes but cold rebooting out of that can completely trash windows.

I am not that crazy, it's displayed when an update is processing, I am waiting in this case. Here nothing for too long, but next time I'll wait anyway, I had forgotten this "read-only" partition which were not cleanly unmounted.