Why is Google Chrome not downloading anything?

Question

I click the direct link to the file and it just does nothing. No loading or anything. Some places work, some places don't. I also checked in my Downloads folder, nothing started downloading.

Any suggestions?

Solution 1

Okay, since the problem is definitely with your profile, what you want to do is to transfer as much of your existing profile to a new one as possible. The easiest way to do it, losing as little as possible is as follows:

1. Leave your old profile alone (ie, don’t move or delete anything from it, even consider zipping it, just in case)
2. Create a new profile if necessary (Chrome automatically creates one when run if one does not exist)
3. Close Chrome
4. Copy one of the files from your old profile to the new one, overwriting the existing one (or rename the existing one)
5. Run Chrome and test to see if the problem exists
   • If it does, delete that file and let Chrome re-create it (or delete the copied one and un-rename the other one)
   • Note the file that caused the problem
6. Go to 1. and repeat for another file until you have processed everything in your profile

Some notes:

• You can try copying a few things at a time, then narrow it down from there, especially since some things are unlikely to be the problem such as extensions, themes, scripts, local storage, etc. In fact, the most likely problem is Web Data. Try that one first.

• Once you have narrowed the problem down to (hopefully) a single file, then you can look into copying as much from the old one to the new one as possible (most of Chrome’s data files are in SQLite3 format, so you can/may/should be able to export the old data and import into the new one).

• Consider doing it the other way around: instead of migrating your old data to a new profile, just make a copy of your old profile and delete one file at a time from it (thus letting Chrome re-create it), then check to see if the problem is fixed.

Solution 2

Head over to about:flags and check if you have the "New Download UI" enabled. If so, disable it.

Solution 3

Try another browser and see if you have the same issue. Its probably an AV/firewall issue. A while back I had a conflict with Spyware Doctor and Chrome. Even if I created an exception to allow full access, it wouldn't work. Had to disable kernel compatibility mode. So check your protection settings for any anti-malware you are running including the not so obvious ones.

Comments

[itdoesntwork]

Yup, I've checked both. What I was trying to download was direct-linked. It happens on every website.

[Synetech]

What happens if you right-click the link, select Copy link as… then paste that into the Omnibar and press Enter? Does it work then?

[itdoesntwork]

@Synetechinc. Nope.

[Synetech]

Nope what? If you enter a URL directly to a file in the Omnibar, it still won’t download? What exactly happens? What are your download settings? (Wrench->Options->Under the hood->Downloads. Check the selected folder and Ask where to save…)

[itdoesntwork]

Nothing happens. Even rebooting doesn't fix it. I've even tried what you said with the downloads option

[Synetech]

So the directory specified for the download location is definitely valid? Select the Ask where to save option; does it give you a Save As dialog? Does it happen with any specific kind of file? Try clicking the Clear auto-opening settings button below the Downloads section. Also, make sure that there is sufficient space on the drive(s) where the download directory, temp directory, and your User Profile are located. (Let me know if you need help checking what drives they are on.)

[itdoesntwork]

@Synetechinc. I had the Save As dialog option turned on, but when it stopped working I tried to get it to work by disabling it and downloading to my downloads folder (in c:\users) I searched the whole filesystem to see if the files where there. No files are downloaded at all.

[Synetech]

Wow, strange. Test using a new, clean User Profile. If it works, then your profile is damaged somehow and you’ll need to try to export as much of it as possible to a new one. If it still does not work, then it is a problem with the browser itself, so restore your original profile, then we’ll try to fix Chrome (go to Wrench->About Chrome and see if it is the latest version, and if not, let it update to see if that fixes it).

[itdoesntwork]

Thanks, it works! The New user profile got the job done. I'm currently working on getting all my personalized stuff over there (a lot).

[Synetech]

I have a tip for that, but it is too big to fit here, and can’t contain any formatting, so see my answer below.

[itdoesntwork]

Other browsers work, no AV/firewall problems. I think it's an internal bug with Google Chrome. Guess I'll be using Firefox for a while now :|

[itdoesntwork]

Nope, it's currently disabled.