Brave won't download files

[matthias.lehmann86]

Hello there,

I love the Brave browser but there is a recurrent issue with file downloads that is driving me crazy to the point I’m considering moving back to some flavor of Firefox.

I’ve been using Brave in Linux, especifically with OpenSUSE+KDE, for some years now so I’ve been through several versions both of Brave and SUSE. Independently of the versions used or the add-ons installed, Brave stops downloading / uploading files at some point without any kind of error. This happens always at the worst possible time and the only solution I could came up with was to create a new user profile every time this happens.

There seems to be a major, longstanding issue with the code handling the downloads, perhaps in the integration with Linux/QT/KDE , that really needs some attention.

Let me know if there is something I can do to help fix this problem once and for all.

Thank you.

[SmartyAadi]

Could you disable extensions and see if that solves this?

[matthias.lehmann86]

Disabling extensions doesn’t change anything unfortunately.

I did a major breakthrough shortly after writing the post above: if I uncheck the option of asking where to save the file before downloading, then the files are downloaded.

I suspect the uploads are still not working, but at least I can download things into the last used folder.

[SmartyAadi]

I will tag @JimB1 since he’s helped out Linux users.

[JimB1]

Are you using Wayland?

Do you have Chromium or Firefox installed, and if so, does the issue occur with either of them?

There have been some seemingly-known issues such as:

Downloading save file dialog not showing

Description of the issue: Downloading a PDF or ISO doesn’t show the download dialog, and doesn’t download anything. If the “Ask where to save each file before downloading”-toggle is off, the download does happen. It seems that Brave doesn’t need the dialog for that, download is a success. How can this issue be reproduced? Install Fedora 36 beta (Gnome 42 + Wayland) Install Brave (using the script from Brave) Download any ISO or PDF file… it will fail Expected result: A dialog that will al…

After starting ANY download the mouse clicks within the brave browser go dead

After starting ANY download the mouse clicks within the brave browser go dead. Download ANY file. During and after the download successfully completes, the mouse clicks within the brave-browser do nothing. Clicking outside the brave window on other applications still work, and the keyboard still works, but the browser itself is non-responsive. The only way (I have found) to restore normal browser behavior is to reset X11 with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. One would not expect the browser to…

Can't download or save on linux

I switched to KDE and it worked. I switched back to gnome just to see if it was a library that was installed with KDE but gnome still does not work.

Downloading save file dialog not showing

Description of the issue: Downloading a PDF or ISO doesn’t show the download dialog, and doesn’t download anything. If the “Ask where to save each file before downloading”-toggle is off, the download does happen. It seems that Brave doesn’t need the dialog for that, download is a success. How can this issue be reproduced? Install Fedora 36 beta (Gnome 42 + Wayland) Install Brave (using the script from Brave) Download any ISO or PDF file… it will fail Expected result: A dialog that will al…

Not sure the status of whatever that issue is. Would be interesting to see if you have the same problem with Chromium in particular.

[BarryMead]

I am not using Wayland.
I do have google-chrome browser and the problem does not occur in that browser.
Additionally, any file I/O to the local hard drive freezes up brave. Upload/Download a file, Save/Load bookmarks etc.
My version of brave-browser is the current one in the repository for Ubuntu 22.04.
The version of brave that comes with my Ubuntu 16.04 Linux does not have the issue either. Only the newer brave-browser that comes with Ubuntu 22.04 has the lockup after file I/O issue. Please fix it. I prefer Brave’s features to Chrome, but currently I have to use chrome, as it is too much of a hassle to reboot X11 after
any file I/O in the browser.

[JimB1]

I don’t think you’re the OP so we do still need to hear from @matthias.lehmann86, we can’t jump to the conclusion at this point that these are all the same issue.

But before continuing, you should tell us the exact version of Brave you’re talking about, as well as how you installed it. Also, testing with Chromium might tell us more; and, a new version of Brave (based on Chromium 111) is imminent, likely within the next day or two.

@BarryMead, I would frankly recommend you start a new thread because it does sound quite possibly a different issue.

But for both of you, maybe best to wait a day or two and see if the issues continue after the upgrade, rather than spend more time troubleshooting on this version.

[matthias.lehmann86]

I’m not using Wayland and never had this problem with Firefox. In fact, I keep Firefox installed just because of this issue. Moreover, as I mentioned before, this is a longstanding issue that has been present for quite some time now across multiple versions.

[JimB1]

OK. But let’s pick it up after the next release, which again I think is likely to be today or tomorrow.

Meanwhile, let us know which version of OpenSUSE you’re running. It will be difficult to attempt reproduction without knowing more system details.

And please also let us know how best to attempt to reproduce the issue. Is it after a certain pattern – for example, after x # of downloads, or x amount of data transferred, x # of days passed, etc.

[matthias.lehmann86]

Unfortunately I don’t know how to reproduce the issue. Currently I’m running Open SUSE Leap 15.3 on one machine, and Open SUSE Tumbleweed on another. Both with KDE and the last version of Brave installed using the official way described on brave.com.