Do you see the file in the Downloads Manager (Show All Downloads)?

If the file shows there, but Open in the right-click context menu is grayed then the file is missing in that location and may have been deleted by anti-virus software.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Unable+to+download+or+save+files
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_save_or_download_files

cor-el, thanks for responding--I remember how helpful you were in the past, and this is a major challenge for me, because it's urgent that I find and read this attachment.

To answer your questions: I can't find the "Downloads Manager" in my version of Firefox. I did look at Show All Downloads and it wasn't there. It couldn't have been deleted by anti-virus software because this is a PDF sent to me by a medical researcher, and there's no way it could have been infected. Plus, wouldn't I receive immediate notification that a virus had been detected?

I have to go to sleep now, it's extremely late and I'm very drowsy, but I'll respond to any further questions in the morning. What I'll do first thing tomorrow is send myself an attachment from a g-mail account to my Yahoo email, and see if that one disappears too upon being downloaded. That way we'll know for sure if a virus is responsible for the current disappearance. I'm almost positive tomorrow's attachment will vanish as well.

Thanks again cor-el, it's comforting that a real expert is on the case!!

See this link

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/find-and-manage-downloaded-files?esab=a&s=cant+find+download+attachment+in+yahoo+mail&r=0&as=s

This will help you.

OR

Go to Firefox > Options > General and see your default download location. You can find your downloaded attachment in your default download location.

Thank you.

To Sukanya and cor-el and any other interested parties:

This morning I have had an exercise in real-life permutations and combinations such as I've never had (or wanted), but as a result I come equipped to this discussion as a far more knowledgeable, though still very puzzled person!

Here's what I've done: Using both Firefox and Chrome, and my Yahoo Mail and GMail accounts, I've sent emails with attachments back and forth, exhausting all possibilities.

And here's what I've learned: When using Gmail, whether entirely in Firefox, entirely in Chrome, or in a combination; whether I open it in Firefox or Chrome, etc. everything is fine. When using Chrome the attachment simply is sent to "Downloads" (not the one inside Documents, the other one), when using Firefox, I first get a dialog box asking for my permission (which is the arrangement I have deliberately chosen for all my downloads of this sort) and then it's directed to the same place that Chrome sends it. Now, when I create and send the email with attachment in Yahoo Mail, but receive and open the email in Gmail, the attachment downloads perfectly to the appropriate place, whether I access Gmail in Firefox or Chrome.

However, when I RECEIVE an email with attachment in Yahoo Mail, and download it to my "Computer" since I don't have Dropbox (incidentally, both Yahoo Mail and Gmail give the user the same two downloading choices--to the "computer" or "Dropbox"), the attachment is scanned for viruses, downloaded, and then DISAPPEARS!

I have sent about six different attachments this morning and all of them have vanished without a trace when opened in Yahoo Mail. I have conducted searches with the Windows Search Tool using the file name in every single location in my computer, and, in addition, I have manually opened all logical (and many illogical) folders throughout my computer to see if the missing attached files may be lurking there. All with the same result--NOTHING!

One very strange and annoying quirk: After discovering all this, I forwarded several of the emails with attachments that had disappeared when opened in Yahoo Mail to my Gmail account. There, I saw the icon for an attachment, clicked on it and successfully sent it to Downloads, where I found it. So it seemed that I had found a work-around for this terrible problem with Yahoo Mail--just forward the email with attachment to my GMail account and download it there. But for some unknown reason, the ORIGINAL attachment--the one sent to me by the medical researcher that I really want to read--did not get forwarded to GMail, so I wasn't able to download it. Only the text of that particular email, not the attachment, got forwarded. I have no idea why that happened, in contrast to all the other forwarded emails, where the text and attachment were both sent successfully.

So, in summation, clearly the problem lies with Yahoo Mail, not Firefox, but if any of you have any suggestions as to where the attachments downloaded in Yahoo Mail may be going, please let me know!!

Related to its "Neo" interface updates, Yahoo appears to have changed the preferred mail servers for many users. If you are using an old bookmark to access Yahoo! mail, you sometimes find that attachments never actually download. To test whether this is the issue, try accessing your Yahoo mail through another route, such as:

• Yahoo! home page: https://www.yahoo.com/ (follow email link)
• My Yahoo! page: https://my.yahoo.com/ (follow email link)
• General email link: https://mail.yahoo.com/

Does that make any difference?

By default, Firefox tags all downloaded files with an attribute that causes Windows to apply its download security policies to them. To see whether this is causing the problem, you can turn off the combined virus scan + tagging by changing a setting in the about:config preferences editor. This section of the above-linked support article has the steps for that:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/cant-download-or-save-files#w_disable-virus-scanning-in-firefox-preferences

If the attachment got scanned by your anti-virus software and subsequently disappeared then it is likely that the anti-virus software was responsible for this action. If your AV software keeps a log of such actions then you can check that to see if the file got quarantined somewhere on the computer instead of saved to the Downloads folder. If the attachment got scanned by AV software on the on the Yahoo site before getting send to you then you should contact Yahoo about this or see if you can disable this scan and let you own AV software handle this.

First, thank you jscher2000 and cor-el for your responses.

Do you know how people are told to count to ten before acting when they're angry in order to avoid an embarrassing outburst? Well, perhaps they should also be told to count to ten, or higher, before acting when they are totally overwhelmed by the magnificence of something, because the babbling they might do in such a state of discombobulation could be even more embarrassing!!!

So, I've just counted to about fifty, in order to calm down enough to write a presentable, composed declaration of amazement and eternal gratitude to you jscher for the suggestion contained in your first post. I clicked on the first link, went to my Yahoo Mail account by that alternative route (in Chrome) and Voila!, it worked just as you said.

I am truly beside myself with delight because I've just spent hours in the Yahoo Mail forum searching, along with many others with the identical problem, for a solution--all in vain. I had given up, truly believing I would never get to read that original attachment, when I saw in my Inbox the notification of some responses in the Mozilla Forum. When I read yours I really didn't believe your suggestion would work, but in an emotionally deflated state I went through the motions of trying it. When I saw the attachment downloading I really and truly could not believe my eyes!! If I hadn't counted to fifty before writing this I would be outdoing John the Baptist in my proclamations regarding you jscher!!!!

How you came to know these arcane facts about Yahoo Mail (far more than anyone in Yahoo Mail seems to know) is something I'd really be interested in learning, if you don't mind telling me. In any case, I'm now able to read the paper the researcher sent me, which would not be possible without your efforts on my behalf. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you!!!!!!

Hi graviton37, I learned about problems downloading from Yahoo! mail using an old bookmark from numerous people complaining about it here for the past couple of weeks. But given the hundreds of posts a day, there is plenty of luck involved in connecting the dots. Hopefully this site's search engine will improve in the future so when you enter your subject line with the magic words download attachment Yahoo Mail one of those recent threads will pop right up for you to find earlier in the process.

jscher, I'm not sure I understood your explanation of how you arrived at the solution. Are you saying that in the course of trying to deal with the problem among Firefox users here in the forum you encountered someone who TOLD you about the bookmark being the problem and the alternative route being the solution, or are you saying that in carefully analyzing the accounts of the many people who were experiencing the problem, you realized that they all had in common accessing Yahoo Mail via old bookmarks, and then you suggested to one of them trying an alternative route, and it worked? Or did you actually think to ask people with the problem how they accessed Yahoo Mail?

Hi graviton37, I don't remember. It may have been an inference based on someone saying Yahoo mail worked if they accessed it from Google search results and someone else saying it worked if you copied the address from another browser into Firefox's address bar. Or someone might have discovered that it was the bookmark. So many posts, and not so easy to research the past.