foxfire87 said

Could be that, despite constant updates, my browser has become corrupted.

Let’s do a full clean re-install; Download Firefox For All languages And Systems {web link} Save the file. Then Close Firefox.

Using your file browser, open the Programs Folder on your computer.

Windows: C:\Program Files C:\Program Files (x86)

Mac: Open the "Applications" folder.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac

Linux: Check your user manual. If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder Firefox in your home directory.

Do Not remove the profiles folder.

Look for, and rename any Mozilla or Firefox program folders by adding .old to them. Do not rename the Mozilla Thunderbird folder if there is one.

After rebooting the computer, run a registry scanner if you have one. Then run the installer. If all goes well, remove the OLD folders when you are done.

If there is a problem, start your Computer in safe mode and try again.

Starting The Computer In Safe Mode;
Free Online Encyclopedia

You can't prevent Firefox from removing download history older than 60 days as this is done automatically when the code in the bug report I previously linked to has landed in the release update channel.

The "Expire History by days" extension makes it possible to remove history older than a specific number of days and will not likely have any effect for keeping download history (removing history includes both the browsing and the download history). There is likely nothing wrong, this is just an unfortunate change made by the Firefox devs and noly they can decide whether to undo this for the history.

Thanks for the clarification cor-el.

I will be looking into another browser who's developers do not make decisions or set my personal preferences for me.

Once again, thanks to all for your time and effort.

I found a way to copy downloads as "<a href>title</a>" type bookmark items to the clipboard (flavor:text/html). Create a copy of the Downloads folder in the left pane of the History Manager (Library) via the right-click context menu. When you paste this folder in a Bookmarks folder then it behaves the same as the original Downloads folder. You need to do an additional Cut/Paste to activate the smart folder and give it its special icon. Best is to paste this folder in a location that allows access to it in the bookmarks sidebar to get 'copy' control for individual items. The Downloads smart folder has this Place URI:

• place:transition=7&sort=4

Right-click the smart folder itself and not its content to get the full content of the folder on the clipboard in "text/html" format. In the sidebar you can select individual items in the usual way (Shift/Ctrl) and copy selected items to the clipboard via the right-click context menu. Note that "text/x-moz-place" (JSON) doesn't work for a folder, you can only use "text/x-moz-place" for links in a folder.

Code for the Browser Console to convert "text/html" to "text/unicode" to make it possible to paste in a text file.

/* copy "text/html" to "text/unicode" - cor-el@support.mozilla.org */
Cu.import("resource://gre/modules/Services.jsm");
var clipboard = Services.clipboard;
flavors = ["text/unicode","text/html","text/x-moz-place"];
flavor = flavors[1];  // in:[1] = text/html
var trans = Cc["@mozilla.org/widget/transferable;1"].createInstance(Ci.nsITransferable);
trans.init(null);
trans.addDataFlavor(flavor);
clipboard.getData(trans,clipboard.kGlobalClipboard);
var str = {}, strLength = {};
try{trans.getTransferData(flavor,str,strLength)}catch(e){}
if(str&&str.value){
pastedTxt = str.value.QueryInterface(Ci.nsISupportsString).data;
console.log("< \""+flavor+"\" data found on clipboard >");
var str = Cc["@mozilla.org/supports-string;1"].createInstance(Ci.nsISupportsString);
str.data = pastedTxt;
var flavor = flavors[0]; // out:[0] = text/unicode
var trans = Cc["@mozilla.org/widget/transferable;1"].createInstance(Ci.nsITransferable);
trans.init(null);
trans.addDataFlavor(flavor);
trans.setTransferData(flavor,str,pastedTxt.length*2);
clipboard = Services.clipboard;
clipboard.setData(trans,null,clipboard.kGlobalClipboard);
console.log("< \""+flavor+"\" data placed on clipboard >");
}else{console.log("< \""+flavor+"\" data not found on clipboard >")}