Download fails silently after choosing location to download - fixed in Ubuntu by installing xdg-desktop-portal

Browser Support Desktop Support
1

Description of the issue:
Downloading a PDF shows the download dialog, however, after specifying the filename and location to download, it fails silently.

The result is as if the [Cancel] option instead of the [Save] button was clicked.
The browser download history is empty.
I have reinstalled and tested with Brave standard and nightly. Both fail.

I had been using Brave in this configuration (ubuntu+brave) for years with no issue.
It now it consistently fails.

I have tested with the “Ask where to save each file before downloading” toggle in either setting (on/off) and it fails with either selection. (An older trouble report indicated it helped them, but did not help in my case.)

The behavior observed for those PDF files displayed in a new tab might be helpful in discerning the source of the trouble. In the tab displaying the PDF there are two buttons at the upper right.

  1. When the [Download button/icon] is selected, the download again fails silently as above.

  2. When the [Print button/icon] is selected, the print dialog appears as expected. Using that dialog to Print to File will successfully save the PDF to the computer.

This is a work-around that may or may not provide a clue to where Brave is failing during the download process.

Using a different browser (latest version of Vivaldi, for example) there are no difficulties downloading a PDF from that browser.

I would be interested in hints as to where to search in logs for any failure messages from Brave. Thank you.

How can this issue be reproduced?

Install Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
Install Brave (using the script from Brave)
Attempt to download any PDF file.

Expected result:

Following clicking [Save] in the download dialog, a downloading icon should appear in upper right of browser window, and when download completes, this should change to a status window showing that the file is downloaded.

Brave Version:

Version 1.79.28 (Official Build) nightly (64-bit)
Chromium: 135.0.7049.52

Additional Information:

OS Name: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
GNOME version: 42.9
Windowing System: $XDG_SESSION_TYPE = wayland

2

@20252025

Take a look at:

Click to download or upload not working - #14 by 289wk

Click to download or upload not working - #15 by zac3

Download A Test File

A simple text (TXT) file. The file’s contents are one word: ‘test’:

testFile.txt (4 Bytes)

1 Like
3

Thank you.
Test file fails with same symptoms as provided above.

I have no extension and I am loath to become dependent on a Chrome extension for basic Brave browser functionality.

4

Have you ever seen someone report that upgrading to a newer version of their operation system fixed this obviously long-standing (5 years) issue with Brave?

5

Using this address in a new browser window> brave://version <provides:

Brave 1.79.28 Chromium: 135.0.7049.52 (Official Build) nightly (64-bit)
Revision 71ce5de2e0f8c5a078add6abf30734a616b4affd
OS Linux
JavaScript V8 13.5.212.10
User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/135.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Command Line /opt/brave.com/brave-nightly/brave --disable-domain-reliability --enable-dom-distiller --enable-distillability-service --origin-trial-public-key=<> --lso-url=https://no-thanks.invalid --sync-url=https://sync-v2.brave.com/v2 --variations-server-url=https://variations.brave.com/seed --variations-insecure-server-url=https://variations.brave.com/seed --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --component-updater=url-source=https://go-updater.brave.com/extensions
Executable Path /opt/brave.com/brave-nightly/brave
Profile Path /home/<>/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser-Nightly/Default
Command-line Variations <>…
Active Variations SeedFileTrial:Control_V7

6

I used the suggestions at your last link to launch Brave from the command line.

/opt/brave.com/brave-nightly/brave -n --args --incognito --no-experiments --disable-extensions --disable-gpu

When I attempt to download your testFile.txt link, the following error is displayed in the terminal window each time the download is attempted:

Gtk-Message: 17:26:25.240: GtkDialog mapped without a transient parent. This is discouraged.

EDIT TO CLARIFY: It repeatedly reports the following error, EVEN IF DOWNLOAD has NOT been attempted:

[34447:34447:0406/173350.374388:ERROR:star_randomness_points.cc(120)] StarRandomnessPoints: no response body for randomness request, net error: ERR_HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE_FAILURE

There is also some startup errors:
MESA-INTEL: warning: Ivy Bridge Vulkan support is incomplete
libva error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed

7

May interest:

https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/err_empty_response/

EXCERPT:

Common Causes of the ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE Error

This error is often caused by connectivity issues, such as a poor internet connection or problems with the server itself.

It can also be caused by browser extensions or too much browser cache.

In addition, you might be using a security program that is blocking the connection. The issue might also be attributed to problematic temp files.

It can be hard to determine the exact cause of the error. However, there are a few simple things you can do to fix it.

The remainder of the article:

How To Fix the “ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE” Error (5 Potential Solutions) . . .

1 Like
8

Yes

If it’s just a single person? Think of all the millions of people using Brave and realize that hardly anyone has come here to say they have this issue. Which then suggests it’s something on an individual device or setting.

That said, there are occasional reports. So not saying it’s a non-issue but usually it’s a 3rd party thing or some weird fluke.

What about Chrome? Vivaldi or Edge have a lot more deviations. Testing on Chrome is a bigger hint as to whether it may be something related to Chromium.

Other good thing to know would be if you test on Brave Release (the normal browser) or Brave Beta.

Out of curiosity, where did you grab Brave from? For example, did you use flatpak or anything? More particularly, which method did you use from https://brave.com/linux/

I know you said used the script but guess just wanting to make sure no wrong assumptions on my part or anyone else’s.

1 Like
9

@20252025 Also for what it’s worth, I pinged ChatGPT to see what suggestions it might have. I’m not as familiar with Linux. For now, also wanted to share the below for what it’s worth, in addition to my prior reply.

Not sure if any of it will help, but seems fairly legit and may give more clues. Beyond that, may just rely on @Mattches. Can reference https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/42473 as may be related and I just am doing a +1 now for your topic as well as one from another language that posted today.

:test_tube: Suggested Next Steps:

  1. Run Brave with Verbose Logging
    This might reveal errors related to the download process:

    brave-browser --enable-logging=stderr --v=1 2>&1 | tee brave-log.txt

    Then attempt a PDF download and inspect the brave-log.txt output for any errors or warnings.

  2. Check Brave’s Internal Logs
    Look inside:

    ~/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser-Nightly/Default

    See if there’s a file like chrome_debug.log. If so, delete it first, reproduce the issue, then check for new content.

  3. Test in an X11 Session Instead of Wayland
    Since you’re using Wayland, try logging out and choosing “Ubuntu on Xorg” from the login screen, then repeat the download steps. Some file dialogs and permissions behave differently under Wayland.

  4. Try Chromium (Vanilla)
    Install Chromium using:

    sudo apt install chromium-browser

    Then test the same PDF download. If Chromium also fails, the issue may stem from a shared Chromium/GTK/Wayland layer, not Brave specifically.

1 Like
10

Thank you for your kind replies.
It is especially encouraging to see that upgrading OS might be helpful. I already had that on my “To Do” list.

I have a lot of respect for the Brave project and hope my comment was not taken as anything other than an observation. There is something that goes wrong, but not consistently enough to allow easy identification of the source. Considering that other browsers built on Chrome don’t seem to break this way, it does suggest Brave has somewhere a place that is a bit more open to failing specifically when it comes to the download dialog parts.

I have not tried Chrome, and while Vivaldi is built using the Chromium engine, it has it’s own user interface which I didn’t realize when I was testing.

I have been using the Release channel version, and only moved to Nightly version after the problem appeared.

This first appeared after using “sudo apt upgrade” a few days ago. Nothing else had changed in my Browser settings.

When I installed originally, it was using the steps given here:

When I uninstalled, removed the Brave directory and reinstalled Nightly it was using these instructions:

edit to add notes:
_
You reference https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/42473 which is a distinctly different issue (download dialog does not appear at all) which is also related to downloads, but is a failure an earlier point in the process.
_

  1. verbose logging did not provide output that appears to be related to the issue beyond what I already reported with this error message:
    " Gtk-Message: 17:26:25.240: GtkDialog mapped without a transient parent. This is discouraged."

A theory: I do believe this is a significant error which may indicate that what is causing the silent failure is actually an instantiation problem where the link to the parent to the dialog somehow is lost and therefore the dialog has no one to report to. The actual download process code would then be waiting forever for the dialog to give it the “Save As” information, which it never gets.
_
2. I did not discover any logs anywhere in the BraveSoftware directory with names similar to “*debug.log”
_
3. Logging out and then logging back in using a Xorg (X11) Session and repeating the test steps in this session produced the same silent download failure.
_
4. I have not yet tried installing Chromium. I will again note that nothing was changed on this computer with the exception of routine updates of software using “sudo apt update” with all Brave settings untouched. This does hint at a software issue that is is only revealed in edge cases.
_

Again, thank you so very much for your detailed response.

1 Like
11

Thank you.

In reference to the error:
“no response body for randomness request, net error: ERR_HTTP_RESPONSE_CODE_FAILURE”

It’s likely something related to the browser and what the VPN blocks. This appears to be unrelated to the silently failing download issue.

However, I did test the download issue with and without the VPN and the result was the same both ways.

12

@20252025

Take a look at:

https://www.techbout.com/chrome-download-failed-insufficient-permissions-5071/

13

@20252025

Create a new, Linux OS user account (admin level).

Do Not copy any settings or files to that new admin account.
Restart the computer and sign on: that new admin account.

Launch Brave Browser, and Do Not import anything nor transfer any settings to the new Brave Browser profile that will be created.

Test a download, using a simple, test PDF file, courtesy of W3C:

‘https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/xhtml/testfiles/resources/pdf/dummy.pdf’

14

Thank you.

The insufficient permissions issue with Chrome does not appear to be related to my problem since the reported errors (seen in your example) are not present in my circumstance.

15

This test results in an identical silent fail of the download. I continue to lean towards the theory that the code generating the dialog window is where to be looking for this apparent bug. The error says that something does not have a parent. If that something is the dialog, there would be no where for the results of the dialog call to be returned. And the user would see the same behavior as when the [Cancel] button on the dialog was chosen. (1) dialog goes away, (2) no download takes place, (3) download history is empty.

16

While I have done my very best to provide as much testing as could be expected for someone not working on the software, and have reported my results here in hopes of it being helpful to any interested developers, I have nearly run out of time to contribute here.

Since I already have another computer running Ubuntu 24.04.01 and Brave (nightly) that downloads perfectly all the time, the workaround for me will be to upgrade this computer from Ubuntu 22 to Ubuntu 24.

“So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.”

17

@20252025

Thanks for testing.

I am hoping that Brave team member @fmarier will have some notion on how to proceed, some guidance re your issue.

1 Like
18

Oh that is not good news for me. They are using the latest Ubuntu and the same fail is happening for them as well. This indicates that something has changed in the past few weeks that is now a more solid fail for certain configurations. His version of Brave is older though. (Versión 1.77.95 Chromium: 135.0.7049.52 Build oficial 64 bits)

UPDATE: I have installed chromium as follows:

  1. wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
  2. sudo apt install google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Running this version of Chrome and again tested downloading with the same silent fail results as with Brave. Not sure what this tells us.

19

I would wait for @fmarier - he knows a lot about the Brave Browser installation on Linux OS.

1 Like
20

I have also run into this problem on my bank’s site. I can reproduce consistently and the only thing that works is the “print to PDF” work-around you’ve described above. Other sites I’ve tried work fine though, only this one is broken.

Last time I looked, it appeared to be either a site problem or an upstream Chromium issue because I could reproduce the problem on that bank’s site in Chrome.

So two questions for you (to see if we’re talking about the same problem):

  1. Are you seeing this problem on just one or two sites? Or is it everywhere where you are trying to save a PDF?
  2. On affected sites, can you try to see if it always fails in Chrome?
2 Likes