Potential bug: Brave freezes/locks up after downloading a PDF to an external USB drive on elementaryOS. The only way to fix it is to kill the brave process + every open instance of Brave and re-open/restore it

[JayLoerns]

I have experienced this continuously for 6+ months so I am pretty sure this is a bug.

Basically, whenever I download a PDF onto my external USB thumbdrive, the browser will lock up right after it’s done downloading.

I first noticed this when I Downloaded a Google Sheets Document as a PDF and saved it on my USB Thumbdrive.

Doing this makes the browser freeze/lock up indefinitely 100% of the time.

Then, the only way to fix it is to kill the process and kill every open instance of Brave and reopen/restore it.

You can’t even close it.

Since I usually have 2 instances Brave open with a lot of tabs, I found a workaround this bug/issue so I don’t have to kill every instance of Brave.

How do I do it?

Simple, I will open a brand new Brave window specifically for downloading a PDF version of my Google Sheets document OR just any PDF in general to my external USB thumbdrive.

After it’s done downloading, the new window will freeze like expected.

Then, I will simply go to “Multitasking View” on elemenataryOS (Debian based) and kill that specific window and get on with my life.

If anyone has a solution for this, please let me know.

I am using Version 1.12.112 Chromium: 84.0.4147.125 (Official Build) (64-bit) of Brave on a Thinkpad X230 running elementaryOS 5.1.7 Hera with kernel 4.15.0-106-generic on a Dual-Core Intel® Core™ i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz with a Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09).

Problem has be persistent and easily replicated for 6+ months in a predictable manner.

If anyone has a solution, I’d love to hear it.

Brave team: Thanks for making my favorite browser.

Much love.

[justsomeone1]

Hello @JayLoerns

does the issue show up if you downloaded to any other location beside your usb like your local storage ? if you have another usb could you try it ?

hope that help and have a nice day

[Frankguy]

I would also add, though juvenile, I guess Brave site settings are set to default?

Also, is it all pdf downloads? You mentioned Google Docs. I am of the opinion that Google browser products do not function well with Brave. I get they’re Chromium, but for me, Docs, Drive, Gmail, etc do not work nearly as clean with Brave than say CloudConvert, Etherpad public instances, or Mega.

Off topic, but may I ask, do you have a strong opinion of Elementary OS? I have a longtime curiosity with Linux and its Distros. Elementary looks delightful and seems to have a very active and responsive stackexchange.