Why does Safari not download files after Sequoia update?

Just to clarify a couple things on what I reported 2 days ago (September 18, 2024):

I'm using SONOMA 14.7, not Sequoia. Was waiting for a bug fix release before I upgrade to Sequoia.

The Sonoma 14.7 upgrade that I applied this week included Safari 18.0.

The issue that I'm experiencing is with Safari 18.0.

Downloads to network drives worked fine with the previous (17.x) version of Safari. They don't work with Safari 18.0.

DuckDuckGo browser creates download packages in a very similar process to what I reported in the problem with Safari 18.0. I have had no issues downloading files with the DuckDuckGo browser -- it completes the download and moves the file from the package to the target location on the network drive.

Generally, users have more than one browser, so they can just switch to a different product. That could explain the low number of reports here.

This underscores that the problem is in Safari 18. There is no reason why users should have to switch browsers, abandon usual safe practices or save files to local storage. It is not a longstanding bug as it worked in prior versions. Apple needs to fix it.

You’ll need to review what 3rd party system modifications you have installed. The most likely candidate is some kind of file-sync system.

macmustache wrote:

1. > You’ll need to review what 3rd party system modifications you have installed. The most likely candidate is some kind of file-sync system.

I don't think that's likely at all:

It's certainly "likely". That doesn't necessarily mean it is the cause for each and every problem. There are only a handful of people reporting this problem. The problem is quite unusual. There are only a handful of possible causes. The burden is on you to investigate. All we can do is provide possible suggestions for places to look.

For example, one person mentioned downloading files to a network volume. That's obviously not going to work. Network support in macOS gets worse every year. This kind of temporary-download-then-move-into-place is an operation that is well-known to fail on a network volume. 3rd party browsers aren't going to do that, so they would be less likely to fail in this situation. So if you are using a network volume, don't do that.

macmustache wrote:

In our setup no files are saved to local disk; all files are saved to NAS.

You're gonna have to change that.

I do not know any reason why this function should be removed in Sequoia, especially since Ask for each download remains a choice in the settings.

I believe this is a bug in Sequoia Safari, not a problem of user practice.

Oh it's certainly a bug, but not one that's likely to be fixed. The problem lies with how the Mac works (or doesn't) with network volumes. There is a slight chance that Apple could fix Safari to save files differently, but it's only slight chance. This would be a quick and easy fix, so if it does happen at all, it might show up in 2-3 months.

The networking is a complicated, longstanding bug for many years. Quite frankly, I don't know how you managed to make it to Sequoia at all saving all files to a network volume. That's remarkable. I congratulate the skill and competence of your IT team. Alas, everybody meets their match eventually.

Sequoia is quite new, and probably most users are defaulting to the Downloads folder.

New or old, pretty much everybody uses the default Downloads folder on the local drive.

This is a pretty basic support problem. If Apple breaks something for 50 million people, that's Apple's problem to fix. But if Apple breaks something for 50 people, that's your problem to fix.

> they began with not useful tests as reboot, reboot secure mode... So I left the support.

Yes that is a waste of time, indicates that the front line support is not familiar with this well established problem in Safari.

> They even told me to upgrade to Sequoia "to test".

That doesn't change anything

If privacy is a concern for you, use Firefox instead Chrome ;-) . Saving files to network shares works right in Firefox. I'm pretty sure this is a Safari issue and not macOS one, as Safari is the only application showing this problem.

Check to see if your downloads folder is set to Downloads. Settings>General>File Download Location

I also get this using Safari 18.0.1 on macOS 14.7 Sonoma, downloading to the built in drive on my M1 MBP.

Interestingly, if I enable my VPN the same downloads complete and are moved successfully.

I solved the problem by creating a sub-folder in the Downloads folder and then designating the sub-folder as destination for downloads. This works for me. I run Safari Version 18.0.1 Sequoia 15.0.1

But the point is to save to network storage, not to the downloads folder or anything within the downloads folder. Does your solution allow saving to network storage?