1566430 - Firefox beta 68.0 urges me to download a fresh copy of Firefox and "About Firefox" claims no new beta version available

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect, P3)

Description

[alexander.kern]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0

Steps to reproduce:

Use Firefox normally / check "About Firefox" dialog for Firefox upgrades

Actual results:

Firefox shows a hamburger menu green arrow and a popup asking me to download "a fresh copy of Firefox" from the Mozilla.org ...

Expected results:

... instead of the regular way to update the beta version, which until now always only told me to update by clicking a button without needing me to use the website.

It's not a big deal but I'm reporting this in case there is something wrong so it won't lead to worse problems later on. Maybe this happens because I only have 1.3 GB of free storage left on my HDD? But even then I shouldn't be urged to download Firefox 68 stable but the next beta, 69. Also "About Firefox" shows "Firefox is up to date" which is also wrong.

Cheers

Comment 1

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

Thanks for the report. Could you please open in a new tab about:support and use "Copy text to clipboard", then save it and attach that information to this report?

There shouldn't be sensitive information in about:support, but if you are uncomfortable attaching it, then just copy paste the lines from "Application Basics" section that read: Version, Build ID and Update Channel.

Comment 2

[alexander.kern]

Attachment: about:support

(In reply to Adrian Florinescu [:adrian_sv] from comment #1)
> Thanks for the report. Could you please open in a new tab about:support and use "Copy text to clipboard", then save it and attach that information to this report?
> 
> There shouldn't be sensitive information in about:support, but if you are uncomfortable attaching it, then just copy paste the lines from "Application Basics"  section that read: Version, Build ID and Update Channel.

Hello, yes:

Comment 3

[alexander.kern]

(In reply to Adrian Florinescu [:adrian_sv] from comment #1)

Thanks for the report. Could you please open in a new tab about:support and use "Copy text to clipboard", then save it and attach that information to this report?

There shouldn't be sensitive information in about:support, but if you are uncomfortable attaching it, then just copy paste the lines from "Application Basics" section that read: Version, Build ID and Update Channel.

Hello, yes: (see attachment)

This is Firefox 69.0b6. It did work for a few version for Firefox 69 when I had set update to not automatically update, not sure if it's related.

Also this time the pop up telling me that Firefox can't update on it's own urging me to download a fresh version told send me to the Beta download (which on Firefox 68 sent me to stable instead, so this time it worked correctly).

Comment 4

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

Thanks for the info and apologies for the delayed response. From the about:support, the update channel is the correct one: "Update Channel: beta". which means that Firefox should download and update automatically to the latest beta. IMO, the two most obvious causes might be:
1)something that blocks the update, maybe something like a firewall rule or a custom blacklist? - but if the update for any other channel (release) works .. then this is a no go -
2)maybe something broken in the profile that you are using for beta - see below.

If the problem is still reproducible for you, in the sense Firefox beta still cannot update on its own, it could worth a test using a new profile, to exclude something broken in the profile you are using for beta. To accomplish this, you can use the -p parameter when starting firefox and create a new profile (this profile will be a new empty profile). Alternatively, you can just extract/copy firefox beta folder somewhere else and have "dedicated profiles per install" kick-in, automatically creating a new profile for this particular action.

Comment 5

[alexander.kern]

There's no rush as I can just upgrade manually :-)

1. I didn't change anything and it worked before. Also there are automated checks obviously as Firefox does tell me there is an upgrade available. It just doesn't seem to be able to upgrade on it's own as if it didn't have enough privileges for that. Maybe if I didn't have enough space on disk it made sense, but that's not the case. Another weird thing is that the "About Mozilla Firefox" window doesn't even seem to check for a new upgrade. It just shows "Firefox is up to date". Before there was a button that checked for new upgrades when I clicked it.

2. I just checked that and no, it's the same thing in another profile I have and in a completely new profile as well.

Also it happens with the newest 70.0b7 version still.

I assume this is really low priority as I still get notified about new upgrades. If other people have this issue too they can find it here. As long as no one complains I guess it's not really worth investigating.

Comment 6

[alexander.kern]

It suddenly worked with the same version, 70.0b7. I'm not aware of any changes by me to Firefox or my system.