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When I try to download some files from launchpad.net my browser displays page full of different strange characters. I can see that last download was today but I am not able to download it. I am able to download files from different projects but not that one. Here is the link: gcc-arm-embedded-misc

Thats what I see when I want to download

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  • Please add a screenshot for better understanding..
    – heemayl
    Mar 26, 2015 at 21:38
  • Thats what I can see when I click to download prebuilt-native-tools.tar.lzma
    – Al Bundy
    Mar 26, 2015 at 21:43
  • I also have the same problem although i can download easily using chromium..it should be a firefox issue..i am not good with GUI tools..hope someone can help you....
    – heemayl
    Mar 26, 2015 at 22:04
  • Is there any way to download it from terminal?
    – Al Bundy
    Mar 26, 2015 at 22:05
  • Sure..thats very easy..just do wget https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded-misc/native-build-tools/20140701/+download/prebuilt-native-tools.tar.lzma ..will be downloaded in the current directory..
    – heemayl
    Mar 26, 2015 at 22:09

2 Answers 2

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The server reports MIME type text/plain in the HTTP Content-Type header field and Firefox diligently interprets and displays the file content as such. The server behaviour is a known bug in Launchpad itself.

You can circumvent the issue

  • with the entries "Save as…" or "Copy link address"¹ in the context menu of the download link,
  • by dragging the link text to a writeable directory in a file manager, that supports HTTP resources, like Nautilus.

A side note concerning the reported behaviour of Chrome/Chromium: web browsers shouldn't care about file extensions to determine file types according to RFC 1341. They should only care about the MIME string sent in the HTTP response header. If a browser disregards that string in favour of file extensions or content type sniffing, they may be doing something useful for the user in most situations, but they're violating RFC 1341 in the process.

¹ Plus an HTTP client, that doesn't try to display file content, like wget, curl, or DownThemAll!.

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  • On the funny side, my Firefox process just blew up its reserved memory size to a whooping 3.8 GiB while trying to display the file mentioned in the question.
    – David Foerster
    Mar 26, 2015 at 23:54
  • As you're a reputation 1 user: if this answers your question, don't forget to click the grey ☑ under the "0" at the left of this text to accept it, which means "yes, this answer is valid"!
    – David Foerster
    Apr 4, 2015 at 23:31
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The easiest way to fix this would simply be to right click the link and click on "Save Link As".

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4
  • This is a hack..it will not address the real problem and solution..
    – heemayl
    Mar 26, 2015 at 22:33
  • Its not a hack. There is no lzma extension in firefox. I suppose, you could say it is a firefox bug.
    – j0h
    Mar 26, 2015 at 23:02
  • @DavidFoerster I think your comment addresses the problem clearly..you should put that as an answer..
    – heemayl
    Mar 26, 2015 at 23:32
  • @heemayl: Alright. Done!
    – David Foerster
    Mar 26, 2015 at 23:48

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