Every time I download a large file in safari (mavericks version) at the end i get the error cannot write file. help

Try a different broswer or check the permissions on the folder Safari is trying to write the file to or change the location where downloads are saved to that you know your account has writes to write to.

I am experiencing this as well. I've found a workaround. Once you know the file has stopped (the Safari download menu says it cannot write the file) then do the following:

1. Open the Downloads folder.

2. Open Terminal.

3. In Terminal type "cd " and then drag the "incomplete" .download file to terminal (this just copies the path), then hit "Return" and you will change into the directory.

4. Type "ls -l" and you should see within the .download bundle, the complete file is actually there and complete.

5. Now, let's say the file name is "file.mp4" type "mv file.mp4 ../" and it will be moved out of the bundle one level up into the Downloads folder. You may need to enclose the file name in quotes if it has any special characters.

6. You can now drag the .download container to the trash, and the file should be fine.

Worked perfectly! Thanks for the great fix!

While the use of other browsers and Jyri's workaround may be effective, they don't address the issue that Safari, for some such as JAVCAR and myself, will no longer download some large files. Anyone have a solution to fix Safari?

I've got an even easier workaround, but much thanks to Jyri Palm for his answer, which allowed me to come up with this!

The complete file is indeed there, but you can get the file without using Terminal as well.

1. Locate the .download file in your Downloads folder or whereever your downloads are saved to.

2. Control-click on the file and from the dropdown menu select 'Show Package Contents".

3. In this window you will see the complete file along with a .plist file

4. Just drag the file you were downloading out of that folder and onto your desktop or into another folder you want, for me, I just drag it onto the Downloads folder icon in my sidebar which puts it back into the same folder with the bad file

5. Delete the .download file you opened in step 2

I can confirm that the way to fix this is to run the disk utility app, select your primary drive, and click on "repair permissions".

I downloaded subsequent large files without the 'cannot write file' incident.

Unfortunately, running "repair permissions" didn't fix it for me. I suspect the problem only occurs when downloading more than one file at a time.

If any Apple engineers are reading, I noticed this appear in Console.app:

17/01/2014 7:51:58.000 pm kernel[0]: Sandbox: com.apple.WebKit(753) deny file-write* /.MobileBackups/Computer/2014-01-17-194411/Volume/Users/ryan/Downloads/ESV_Hear TheWord_04_m4b.zip.download/ESV_HearTheWord_04_m4b.zip

17/01/2014 7:54:20.000 pm kernel[0]: Sandbox: com.apple.WebKit(753) deny file-write* /.MobileBackups/Computer/2014-01-17-194411/Volume/Users/ryan/Downloads/ESV_Hear TheWord_03_m4b.zip.download/ESV_HearTheWord_03_m4b.zip

You are right repair permissions eventually fails and was not a fix.

I have a fusion drive. do you folks also? Maybe its caught balancing the large file between drives.

No fusion drive on my end. It does seem to happen more with larger files, and it does seem to happen more when downloading more than one file at the same time. It's weird that the file finishes downloading all of the data properly, but then fails at the point of converting the file from the download container into the regular file in the Finder window. I've also had the issue occur in two different user accounts on my MBP.

One more thing: If the download fails, I find that copying the file and then renaming the result to the appropriate name (get rid of the .download extension) at least gives me the file I downloaded ok. Then I seem to be able to delete the .download file.

Very frustrating. Note that itunes has no issues downloading movies. Something browser-ish is going on.

Does anyone experience this problem and have Time Machine turned OFF?

I have Time Machine turned ON, but don't keep the TM drive attached to my laptop, so yes and no...

I have time machine set up too, but when it kept failing I was on the road so the time capsule was not seen.

Could that be a common thread, backups that cannot start (or perhaps interrupted backups that cannot resume)

I have the same problem on my late 2013 rMBP, and it's very frustrating. What's interesting, if I restart download after seeing "cannot write file" message, it works fine the second time.

In other similar topics people suggested trashing >Home>library>Safari>Downloads.plist or >Home>Library>Preferences>com.apple.safari.plist. Not clear if works, but I'll try that next.

Based on the error message from Console.app, I think it could be due to sandboxing security feature in Safari in combination with the local snapshots feature in Time Machine, so yes, that fits in with the backup drive not being connected. But I haven't bothered yet to test myself whether turning off Time Machine completely is a successful work around. I think I'd actually rather just use a different web browser. But if anyone else discovers whether this is actually a work around, let us know.