HTML file being saved to Desktop
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Sometimes, not sure when or why, some files related to browsing are saved to ~/Desktop.
This is one example:
$ file Desktop/billing-download-list
Desktop/billing-download-list: HTML document, Unicode text, UTF-8 text, with very long lines (457)I did not save this file.
My default download location is ~/Downloads.
I'm using 7.0.3495.11 (Stable channel) stable (64-bit).
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@jmss How do you know it's Vivaldi creating this file?
Does it show up in the downloads list?
If it's a text file, have a look at it with less or a text editor.
The file's timestamp might give you an idea of what you were doing at the time it was created. -
@Pathduck, I don't use any other graphical web browser in this machine.
I've not used wget or curl or any other text web browser to fetch that file.
I have not downloaded it, it's an HTML file.
It's probably a page of a site that I visited, but Vivaldi downloads that HTML page to Documents, not sure why.
It happens with other files, I just don't have more examples now.
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@jmss I don't have any ideas for you. I suggest you examine the file content to figure out what it is and where it's coming from.
Could be any program running on your system downloading this file.
Could even be malware on your system for all I know.What I'm sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. In fact doing a search for that file name gives one result - this topic:
https://www.google.com/search?q="billing-download-list" -
@Pathduck, I'm pretty sure this is a bug in Vivaldi.
The HTML page comes from: https://sueletricidade.pt/pt-pt/private/contracts/billing-download-list
This page is, of course, downloaded by Vivaldi so that it can present it graphically, that's what web browsers do.
But it should not download it to Desktop, it's just that.
I suppose it should download it to the cache folder or so.
There must be same path in the code of Vivaldi that causes it to use Desktop as a cache folder in specific situations.
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My guess is that the resource was returned to Vivaldi with the instruction to "automatically save this file to disk, don't display it as a web page", which is specified by a specific, standardized HTTP Header syntax (Content-Disposition attachment); (BTW, that is why many PDF files get downloaded instead of being displayed immediately in a tab). The result would no doubt have been the same in any other browser. (Of course, one can discuss if the site is doing the right thing by doing that, instead of sending you a PDF.)
If you have previously saved files to the desktop, or otherwise specified the default location to be the desktop, and specified automatic downloads in the Global or Site Specific site preferences, then the downloaded file will be save in the default location. (If that permission setting hasn't be set, you would be shown a download dialog, and would be able to select the storage location.)
In any case, we cannot test your site, since the URL requires logging into an account. If you feel up to it, you can use the Network logging in the Developer tools to see what the site actually sends you.
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@yngve, thanks.
I attach the HTML. I have obfuscated some info which I don't know is sensitive or not, just in case.
My default download location is Downloads.
I have Vivaldi setup to always ask whether to open or save.
The HTML does not appear to have the header you mention, but it may be part of another HTML?
Edit: In fact I don't see any option to attach a file.
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@jmss The HTML is not really relevant.
The HTTP Headers sent by the server when loading it would have been.
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@yngve Ok, let me try to do what you say about the developer tools.
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@yngve Not being able to replicate now. I see this in the console:
This is not specific to this site. It happens in other sites. -
@jmss What might be of interest is in the "Network" tab
BTW, if there has been an issue earlier, not being able to replicate now might mean that the site has fixed a problem on their side.
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@yngve What should I filter by?
But this happens in more sites, unrelated to this SU site. -
@jmss you identified the URL above
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@yngve "billing-download-list" has no occurrences.
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@jmss Probably suggest other actions are needed to trigger the display or download of the document. (Or they are no longer generating it.)
BTW, related to the actual download location; I am not really familiar with how the download "save as" dialog looks on Linux, but one possibility is that you accidentally clicked a point in rapid succession (double click, or more) that, due to exactly where on the display you were clicking, and where the dialog opened, you accidentally ended up with selecting the "Desktop" dir as the target dir, and then saved it there.
Accidental double clicks is such a problem security-wise, having been relied on in many attacks, that a number of sensitive dialogs (the download dialogs is not one of them) will not accept mouse click events for a short while after the dialog opens, because doing so might have tricked the user into accepting bad changes to the system.
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@yngve But I am seeing the document. It's the list of invoices. I have selected different date ranges, have opened some of the invoices (PDFs). And there is no reason why someone would download an HTML in normal browsing.
Even pressing Ctrl+S opens a pop-up window that allows me to choose the download location and it's by default in Downloads. And even so the default save name is not the same that appeared in Desktop.
Why are you so convinced this is not a bug and Vivaldi?
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@jmss There are numerous ways for an accidental user-initiate download; Save Link as, Ctrl-As are two of them. Some, like the standardized "Save This" HTTP header field is intended functionality, that is triggered by the website.
For there to be a bug we need a reproduction case that does not involve user action beyond the first (single-click) operation of starting the download.
Also, "Desktop" is one of the standardized directory entries in the Chromium code (there is an "Enumerated" value used around the code to select it as a path); there may be built-in intended actions related to it (e.g. I noticed that on Linux it looks like some Media dirs are under located under the Desktop dir). It is also one of the quick access links in Save As dialogs, so it is easy to click on it, even accidentally.
So, we need much more evidence, including a minimal Proof of Concept, proving that it is undesirable behavior, before we could consider this a bug, not an accidental action in the GUI, or intended behavior; and except special circumstances, the right addressee would likely be the Chromium project, not Vivaldi, since I think we have few patches in the related code.
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Consider trying the following to troubleshoot the issue. Create empty read-only versions of the HTML files being downloaded to your home directory and then see what, if anything, breaks when the file cannot be written to.
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@yojimbo274064400 I am the reporter. This does not happen always. I think this is a bug in Vivaldi where instead of downloading the file to its cache, it downloads it to Desktop. I suppose that Vivaldi must download the HTML file to be able to display it, but should download to a cache directory and no one else. But I can't prove this...
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The earlier suggestion to create a read-only version of the file was in the hope that when the issue next occurs it will trigger a warning / error and this will help locate the source of the issue.
If you require help with creating the read-only file post back here with the exact name of the file; is it
billing download listor the hyphenated version billing-download-list`
