Netscape 7.1 will not download anything. Can you help?

July 15, 2004 6:28 PM

Netscape 7.1 has spontaneously decided not to download anything. [MI]

I also can't right click and save images or open attachments in email. When downloading I get an error message saying the source file can not be read. When I try to open an attachment or save a picture it just doesn't do anything.

I'm running XP, it worked fine in the past and I can still download with IE. Any ideas?

(I can't believe they want ten bucks to answer this via email! Maybe I should just abandon Netscape altogether?)

posted by JoanArkham to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Yeah, you should just switch to Mozilla, really -- there's practically zero difference between Mozilla and Netscape 7, except that Netscape 7 is based on a far older version of Mozilla than the current one. There's not really any reason to stick with Netscape at this point (as far as I'm aware) other than brand loyalty.
posted by reklaw at 7:24 PM on July 15, 2004

Wow Joan - that JUST happened to me. (and I googled and googled and no one else seemed to have ever encountered the problem.)

I can't tell you how it got fixed, but here's what happened. I was going nuts and really needed to download something (thanks to a previous Ask Me thread) so ended up downloading it through IE yesterday. Magically, the next time I tried to download something in Netscape, it worked. Could be coincidence, but worth a shot, right?
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:08 PM on July 15, 2004

Ah, I just noticed you say you can download with IE, suggesting this is not a solution. Sorry.

Then again, mine magically got fixed so there's hope.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:09 PM on July 15, 2004

Response by poster: To answer my own question...

I found the solution here. Although I still don't understand how something can be just fine one minute and screwed up the next minute.

I tried the last version of Mozilla and it was way too buggy for me. In the past when I've switched back and forth between Netscape products it blew my profiles all to hell so I'm gun-shy to try again, but I may have to bite the bullet and do so.
posted by JoanArkham at 3:08 AM on July 16, 2004

Thanks Joan. (I realized what the "magic" was in my case - somewhere along the line I cleared my cache and that may have been what fixed it.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:37 AM on July 16, 2004