#No rights to write in Windows %temp% directory# blocks Firefox downloads, (un)installers, pdf prints, other temp tasks

Question

This is a follow-up on Firefox cannot save files (most of the time), how to solve?, just with a more global problem than just Firefox: I cannot install or uninstall as soon as the %temp folder is touched, which seems the average case.

The question:

How can I get back to a working Windows 10 that has access to my %temp% folder in Firefox, Octave, Microsoft Print to PDF, and probably any other program that uses the %temp% folder (except for Windows Edge, which seems to work), even including install and uninstall?

I have already added "write" to the user rights of that folder and all of its contents. I have also considered some relevant other steps mentioned by Firefox cannot save files (most of the time), how to solve?, like for example deactivating Firewall and Windows Defender. I have also had a look at the two further references that the link mentions, see "Source file could not be read" error when downloading a file with Firefox and Firefox 32: Download fails; cannot read from source, but I have a rather global problem instead.

I have a long list of errors that appear because of a missing right to write files in the %temp% folder. Still, there are yet some log files written into that folder, thus it is not a universal problem.

The problem appears as follows:

• Thunderbird:
  • send an email: Senden der Nachricht fehlgeschlagen. Die Temporäre Datei [myfile] konnte nicht geöffnet werden. Überprüfen Sie Ihre Einstellung für "Temporäre Ordner".
  • save a draft of the mail: Speichern als Entwurf ist fehlgeschlagen. Ihre Nachricht konnte nicht als Entwurf gespeichert werden. Die Temporäre Datei [myfile] konnte nicht geöffnet werden. Überprüfen Sie Ihre Einstellung für "Temporäre Ordner".
• Microsoft Print to PDF: print a website to get a 0 kb file and the message Druckvorschau-Fehler. Beim Drucken ist ein Fehler aufgetreten.
• Octave: running a code selection with F9 (so that it needs the %temp% folder), leads to
  • Octave Dokumentation. Die Daten für die Dokumentationsanzeige konnten nicht vorbereitet werden. Hilfe-Texte können ausschließlich im Befehlsfenster angezeigt werden.
  • Octave Editor. Temporäre Dateien konnten nicht angelegt werden. Stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie Schreibrechte auf das temp. Verzeichnis "C:/Users/Admin/AppData/Local/Temp" haben. "Auswahl ausführen" benötigt temporäre Dateien.
• Firefox (while the download over Windows Edge works!):
  • download an exe file of 4 MB (Windows XP boot disk):
    • C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\[myfile].exe.part konnte nicht gespeichert werden, weil die Quelldatei nicht gelesen werden konnte.;; Versuchen Sie es später erneut oder kontaktieren sie den Server-Administrator.
    • C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\[myfile].exe.part konnte nicht gespeichert werden, weil Sie die Inhalte des Ordners nicht ändern können.;; Ändern Sie die Ordnereigenschaften und versuchen Sie es erneut oder versuchen Sie an einem anderen Ort zu speichern.
  • download a 300 kb exe file (Firefox installer): information in the Downloads overview of Firefox [mydownloadedfile]; Fehlgeschlagen.
• Firefox installer: install Firefox as Admin Extraction Failed. Can not open output file.
• Tracker Software's (yes, that is the official company name ;) PDF XChange-Viewer: uninstall the equivalent program name PDF-Viewer using the Windows system panel gives me Fehler. Es konnte keine temporäre Datei erstellt werden. Das Setup wurde abgebrochen.;; Fehler 5: Zugriff verweigert.

Please accept my German errors / warnings / texts for now. I will translate them on request, still I hope that it will already be clear by context.

Screenshots, randomly added and only fyi:

Here you see that a download in Microsoft Edge is working:

Attachment (some guesses what could be the cause, probably long text for nothing):

I do not see anything that I should have done terribly wrong to get this error, though there are a few very small things: Very roughly around the time that I first got the error, I uninstalled one plugin called Google Translator for Firefox. And I also know roughly what I have done before the last proof of a working system (a sent e-mail at 20:20, when the system obviously still worked) and the first error search (22:12), see screenshot of the Ctrl+Shift+H history of Firefox.

My first error screenshot is of 22:14 then, shortly after the last download try that can be seen above, so that at this moment, I have seen the error the first time probably, and clearly just because I downloaded a file, and not because of that XChange-Viewer website! Moreover, the website is called www.tracker-software.com, which sounds awkward, but which is the real name of that company. If the download was not the cause, one of my last actions was to search for an issue with the program PDF-XChange Viewer (an issue which I had for long: I could not Ctrl+F-search for words in that program), but why should just that cause such a crash? Well. Just found out one funny detail. The free XChange-Viewer is already replaced by the XChange-Editor which has some optional commercial elements in addition to its free tools. Perhaps using the outdated XChange-Viewer has caused the conflict? Anyway, I doubt that this is just the cause of everything.

That is why I guess that it is the uninstalling of the Google Translator for Firefox Firefox add-on (this extension) that has caused the issue, it was a plugin that has never worked anyway for me, or I have rather not understood it. On the other hand, and not less realistic, it might be that I have uninstalled that extension only because of the occuring errors, which made me think about any extras that I have in Firefox. So let us better assume that I simply do not know what is the actual cause, since I do not want to spread any harming information about the add-on when I do not see a clear point here.

My guess for a solution: I should take a Winfuture's Windows 10 boot stick, choose an update where my personal files and apps are kept, and see whether it helps. But I better wait for some suggestions first.

Thank you for your patience.

Here is an addition that was asked from the comments. I can save a wordpad doc in the %temp% directory. I cannot change the USERNAME (in my case "Admin") to full rights, nor the system user, nor the "everyone" user, in the end, it will complain, see the last pictures.

Here are the preferences of %temp% and the changes:

This picture is probably the most relevant: Windows-Sicherheit. Da die Berechtigungen auf Temp in der falschen Reihenfolge sind, werden sie möglicherweise nicht funktionieren. = Windows-Security. Since the rights on Temp are in wrong order, they will perhaps not work.

When I press "Ändern" = "Change", I get:

After accepting the changes in the main window again, I get error windows.

When I now press OK, I get a bunch of the following error windows, and even if I change everything back to the begin state, I go through by just pressing OK. I have to cancel the whole action.

I see that the Admin user (this is just my USERNAME) does not have full rights for all subfolders and files! Changing this will probably help. But changing this is not possible:

After this, the rights have still been changed somehow. Opening it again, I get:

But the same problems remain, e.g. no Download possible in Firefox, no Video on demand aso.

I found out that using the %temp%'s Properties --> Security --> Advanced menu cannot be changed without popping up error messages, but instead the simple "change" button on the main security tab does the thing, which then can be done for USERNAME, SYSTEM and "Jeder" (="Everyone") without pop up windows:

I also moved the whole temp to a backup folder (you must close Firefox, Discord, OneDrive and other running programs, it will show you what is still running and disturbs the file transfer), and moved the files that need admin rights to get moved into a separate backup folder, so that %temp% was empty. I checked that all of the rights were set correctly to full access.

Starting Firefox created an empty Firefox folder and a strange aria-debug-9320.log file which I cannot even open as Administrator in a simple editor. Searching for this file online shows that it is a microsoft log file for OneDrive, with other users having some file size trouble with it (which I do not have): https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files-winpc/aria-debug-log-files-took-all-free-disk-space/15bcfd42-2627-4c03-8342-5c2500f2ec42?page=5.

I guess that it is not this log file that causes the trouble. It is just strange that it is running at all, since I have quit OneDrive, and it appears at the start of Firefox ;).

Answer 1

I have found the solution to this long question.

• Find out which running programs need the %temp% folder by moving all of its content to a new backup folder, e.g. Temp_backup_USERNAME_DATE. You can save it in the same parent folder, e.g. C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp_backup_USERNAME_20201208, of course this is up to you. Whenever the message pops up that a file is currently used by a program, jump over this file and make a list of the named programs.

• Then after the move, quit all of the programs that prevent the full move of the files and move the files again. In my case, these programs were:

  • Firefox
  • OneDrive
  • Discord.

  Of course, you will surely find other programs.

• I suggest creating a separate backup folder for all temp files that need your Admin OK to be moved, something like C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp_backup_USERNAME_20201208_admin. That is just for the case that the file move with admin rights destroys some essential temp functions. In the end, it was not necessary in my case, but who knows.

• When the %temp% folder is empty, rename it to for example to Temp_backup_Admin_20201208_folder_only or move it to another place. This is in order to save the rights assignments for later if something goes wrong. Better do not just delete it before you do not know that the computer works again.

• Now directly restart the computer. I just assume that this is necessary, since Windows will probably create the %temp% folder from scratch again at startup time, with all the default rights, and not just some program that needs the %temp% folder by chance. I might be wrong here, still a restart after a sort-of deleted %temp% folder seems to be good anyway.

• Now test the system. My Firefox downloads, streams, code selection executions or whatever are working again, hope yours as well.

Summing it up: Deleting the %temp% folder is all you need, I just added the steps to get this done against program and admin constraints and suggested moving the files to backups instead of deleting them.