1017817 - About Firefox window incorrectly shows "Firefox is up to date" when update server is unreachable

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 679742

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)

Description

[Gingerbread Man]

Attachment: nightlyisuptodate_unabletoconnect.png

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0
Built from https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/cbe4f69c2e9c

1. Block Firefox in your firewall. Blocking the update server in your HOSTS file probably accomplishes the same thing, though I haven't tried.
2. Open the About Firefox window.
3. The window incorrectly displays, "Firefox is up to date". This happens whether updates are set to automatic or manual and the Check for Updates button is pressed.

Seamonkey 2.26 doesn't have this problem.

Comment 1

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

That is actually in Firefox code and is by design per the Firefox User Experience team.

Comment 2

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Note: we do notify the user to manually install the latest after x number of background check failures where x is determined by Firefox preferences.

Comment 3

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to Robert Strong [:rstrong] (use needinfo to contact me) from comment #2)
> Note: we do notify the user to manually install the latest after x number of
> background check failures where x is determined by Firefox preferences.

app.update.backgroundMaxErrors apparently, whose currently default is 10.
The keyword there is "background". It provides false information when automatic updates are disabled and manual update checking fails. Very strange that this is considered a complete non-issue.

Comment 4

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

This was a Firefox UX decision and there have been a few bugs filed for this already but they would be under Product -> Firefox since that is where the code that controls this lives.

Comment 5

[Gingerbread Man]

That's good to know. I managed to find bug 987961.