Fix: Firefox Downloads window does not appear

I recently had a problem where in Firefox, the Downloads window (the "Download Manager") wouldn't appear when I started to download a file. The Downloads window previously had been working fine.

The behavior I saw was that I would begin download of a file (typically something with a .zip extension), but the Downloads window would never appear, and I wouldn't get any notification that the download was in progress or that the download had finished.

I did verify that the "Show the Downloads window when downloading a file" checkbox in the Options dialog was checked. Checking and unchecking the checkbox and restarting Firefox didn't do the trick, either.

I also tried upgrading from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0, but the problem was still present after the upgrade.

A Google search didn't turn up any relevant information. On a suggestion from my brother Jeremy, I got more specific and searched the Mozilla Bugzilla database (the Firefox public bug-tracking system) for the issue, and came up with a similar issue, describing a problem where the Download Manager window did appear, but wouldn't show downloads in progress.

Ria Klaassen left a comment on that bug record with a suggestion to try deleting the downloads.rdf file in the Firefox profile folder, as it can sometimes get corrupted and cause problems.

I tried deleting my own downloads.rdf file and restarting Firefox, and the fix worked like a charm! My own Download Manager window is working perfectly once again. Thanks Ria!