No error message when file size limitation exceeded

First I don't find where to set the file size limitations. Is it somewhere in the docs? I guess it is by normal admin/settings/uploads. This page however is not available when core upload is not activated. And file framework doesn't need it, as far as I can tell. In this case php max file size seems to apply, see http://drupal.org/node/97193

Apart from the incomplete documentation: if I try to upload a file which exceeds limitation I get no error message. Instead I just get back to empty form in node/add/file. No real log entry as well, as far as I can tell. I think this is a bug.

I am trying now with upload module activated, before I tried with upload module deactivated. If that attempt changes anything I will post a follow up message.