Firefox asks me to download empty files with random names
Hi guys,
My Firefox Nightly keeps asking me to download empty files with random names, e.g. ABC1234567.htm, they always have random letters and digits but the .htm extension is always the same. The files are always empty, 0 bytes. As far as I noticed, it happens when I navigate through pages, e.g. clicking on various buttons on sites or using the Back/Forward buttons on my mouse. I tried to lookup of what's the source of the files via F12->Network, but it did not show me anything related to this problem.
It happens on different websites even on the site coded by me, so that's definitely a browser/extension issue. I saw some posts mentioning this problem on Reddit but there were no solution/explanation.
Just now it asked me to download 3 different files in a row. I made a screenshot of this issue.
Firefox 103 Nightly, Win 10.
All Replies (3)
Dropa said
Sounds more like malware actions not a firefox action. Did you verify this doesn't happen in Private Mode.
Not sure about the Private Mode, I did not think it maybe related to this problem. It happens times to time, not really often, so I don't know when I'll be able to face this issue once again. But I am not the only one who has this problem:
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/tzredg/what_are_these_random_htm_files_that_firefox/ 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/uepq50/random_htm_file_download/ 3. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/u8een0/firefox_randomly_saved_an_htm_file_to_my_desktop/ 4. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1375411
Can you provide steps to replicate this issue? What version of Win 10 are you running? If Pro, can you open windows sandbox and try the same steps. https://www.howtogeek.com/399290/how-to-use-windows-10s-new-sandbox-to-safely-test-apps/ Did you try the same steps under a different windows account. Also try the same steps in Windows Safe Mode. I would also run Process Explorer to see what processes are running when this happens. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer
Modified by jonzn4SUSE
Note that this can be caused by downloading a file over an insecure HTTP link from a secure HTTPS page (i.e.there is mixed content on the page).