Downloads sometimes not starting

[tazamijakal]

Title pretty much says it all, most of the time the bug occurs when I download things from google drive, but I'm sure I've experienced it elsewhere too. The download panel slides out when clicking on "Save file", but there are no signs of a download actually starting(no visible change in network usage).

However in

C:\Users\XXXXXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent

you can see that the browser attempted to download the file.

What guarantees a successful download though is using the "Save as..." option rather than simply "saving" it to the default folder.

Browser is up-to-date most of the time, Windows 11. But it happened to me on another device too.

Edit: What all devices have in common are the "uBlock origin" and "I don't care about Cookies" extensions, which are known to mess with this stuff, but usually not beyond the point where you can already start the download. If I find time in the evening I'll test it without extensions again.

Unrelated question, is the browser history only stored in the cloud? Sometimes it only shows me stuff from the current session, but nothing older than that.

[Pathduck]

@tazamijakal Hello and Welcome to the Vivaldi Community

No problems downloading from Gdrive here, Win10 x64.
I run both those extensions.
Could be another extension?

C:\Users\XXXXXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
you can see that the browser attempted to download the file.

How can you see that?
The Recent folder is for launched programs, not downloaded files. If anything a temporary download should be in %TEMP% but Chromium browsers just create a partial download file named .crdownload in the downloads dir.

So I have no idea why you see a file in Recent. Files in Recent are .lnk files (Shortcuts) - Examine its properties and look in Target where it points.
Could be another program on your system interfering - Anti-malware/Security programs.

Unrelated question, is the browser history only stored in the cloud? Sometimes it only shows me stuff from the current session, but nothing older than that.

Browser history is stored in the History file in your profile. It's a SQLite file.
Vivaldi syncs History between devices if chosen in Sync settings, but it does not read from the "cloud" to populate the history when you search.
Check your History settings.

[tazamijakal]

@Pathduck

Hey, thx for the reply.
I wanted to check whether I maybe just selected a different download folder than usual, so I searched for the file in question and stumbled upon it in the "recent"-folder, however I was wrong in assuming that was the zip I wanted to download since it was just an .ink file as you guessed, filename was cut off before that part. I previously deleted the file since the zip seemed to be corrupted the first time I downloaded it. I can't share the file in question, but if there's any other way to help resolve the issue I'd be happy to do so.

The history thing is even weirder now that I know that it's stored locally.

[Pathduck]

@tazamijakal .lnk files in Recent are only created when you launch a file from the OS (Explorer), not when you download a file.

Did you check the Target of the lnk like I said, it would give an idea of the location of the file (even if it no longer exists).

Did you try disabling extensions like I said?

You said "most of the time" - does this mean it only happens once in a while? Even more difficult to figure out then I'm afraid. Either it works or it don't.

All I can give is the standard troubleshooting steps. I recommend you test in a completely clean profile and try to reproduce it there.
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-issues/