Firefox and Yahoo Mail attachment issue

August 12, 2005 10:54 AM

Something about the Firefox/Yahoo Mail combination is messing with the normal way of downloading attachments.

Whenever I receive an attachment with an underscore (i.e. Report_Jan_05.xls) in the file name and try to download it, it is saved as just the word prior to the underscore (i.e. Report) with no file extension. Of course it is not associated with any program at this point. You can always go back and add the extension name manually but that seems silly. This does not happen when using gmail or IE6 (shudder). I've searched and searched for answers to no avail. What could be the issue here?

posted by tdstone to computers & internet (4 comments total)

I am not a yahoo-er but let's see if we can tease out a little more info:
1. what happens when you right-click the file and "save link as..." ?
2. Do you see the full URL when you right-click and select "copy link location"?
posted by misterbrandt at 11:35 AM on August 12, 2005

uhh, and by "tease out a ltitle more info" i meant so that the answer pool can expand to include other non-yahoo-ers like myself, not because your questions was so vague and crappy.
posted by misterbrandt at 11:39 AM on August 12, 2005

It's a bug that the firefox folks say is Yahoo's fault and as usual, Yahoo says nothing. The bug report for firefox has been open for over a year without any change so I doubt that it will get fixed anytime soon.

Here is the quote from one of the firefox developers, "The problem is that yahoo does not properly escape the spaces in the HTTP headers it sends... Over to evangelism."


At least the firefox folks respond, sometimes I'm not sure if Yahoo actually has human employees, I've been a customer for eight years and have only ever gotten automated responses to issues. I just re-name the file to the correct name after I download it. Sucks though.
posted by octothorpe at 1:05 PM on August 12, 2005

Misterbrandt:Although Octo seems to have hit upon the underlying (although aggravating answer) I will address your previous questions anyway...The file name is represented correctly in all places except when the download dialog box pops up and then the truncated name is displayed.

This bug will probably be the final nail in my Yahoo! account and I will probably move the whole show over to the gmail account I've been using lightly over the past few months.
posted by tdstone at 4:05 PM on August 12, 2005