Firefox blocks all navigation to ask the user to "Restart to keep using Firefox"
Categories
(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)
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(Reporter: octavio.molano, Unassigned)
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(1 file)
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6.97 KB,
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Details |
Firefox_Horrible_User_Experience_Locking_From_Using_My_Browser.png
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.13; rv:98.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/98.0
Steps to reproduce:
If an update is installed, then Firefox will prevent the user to keep browsing, or even opening new tabs. It will insist to "Restart to keep using Firefox".
Actual results:
Requiring the user to restart the browser no matter what work he/she is doing constitutes a pretty horrible user experience, akin to Windows 10 and its infamous required restarts, but even worse, because here it PREVENTS the user to keep browsing at all.
Just typing a URL in a new tab and pressing enter makes this obnoxious message to appear.
No matter how important the developers think is to restart the browser, forcing the user to do it against its will is terrible user experience.
Expected results:
The browser should wait for the user to close the browser to perform the update, instead of blocking browsing until a restart. This is the only browser that has such a disruptive way of forcing an update installation.
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Comment 1•3 years ago
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The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Toolkit::Application Update' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.
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Comment 2•3 years ago
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Assuming that you were using multiple Firefox profiles, this is a known problem that we are working on fixing (Bug 1480452). If, however, you do not use multiple Firefox profiles, that might indicate that there may be something else that we need to fix here.
Do you use multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously?
I also got this behaviour a couple of days ago when upgrading from Firefox 97 to 98. I'd previously got the "you need to restart" view on new tabs when upgrading from 96 to 97, but I was still allowed to continue browsing if I wanted.
The really nasty part of this behaviour is that the user is given only two choices:
- Restart immediately and lose all tabs in private windows.
- Keep the browser open without the ability to navigate to new URLs or open new tabs.
Frankly, I don't see the point of having updates download in the background if you're forced to install them before you can keep using the product. This feels to me like the old pre-rapid-update days (e.g. Firefox 3.6).
As for profiles, I use Firefox Developer Edition on the same machine, but don't use multiple profiles with the stable edition of Firefox.
(In reply to Kirk Steuber (he/him) [:bytesized] from comment #2)
Assuming that you were using multiple Firefox profiles, this is a known problem that we are working on fixing (Bug 1480452). If, however, you do not use multiple Firefox profiles, that might indicate that there may be something else that we need to fix here.
Do you use multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously?
Yes, I'm using multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously. One for work and one for personal stuff.
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Comment 5•3 years ago
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(In reply to o2k from comment #4)
Yes, I'm using multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously. One for work and one for personal stuff.
Alright, this sounds like it is Bug 1480452. We are working on fixing it, but it's a bit complicated so it may take some time.
I do have a suggestion, however, for how you could avoid this problem in the meantime. Containers can be used to separate your Firefox data without using multiple profiles. This addon is very useful for doing this. Depending on your exact workflow and what features you need, this may or may not meet your needs but, if it does work for you, it will allow you to avoid this problem.
(In reply to Gilmore from comment #3)
I also got this behaviour a couple of days ago when upgrading from Firefox 97 to 98. I'd previously got the "you need to restart" view on new tabs when upgrading from 96 to 97, but I was still allowed to continue browsing if I wanted.
The really nasty part of this behaviour is that the user is given only two choices:
- Restart immediately and lose all tabs in private windows.
- Keep the browser open without the ability to navigate to new URLs or open new tabs.
Frankly, I don't see the point of having updates download in the background if you're forced to install them before you can keep using the product. This feels to me like the old pre-rapid-update days (e.g. Firefox 3.6).
As for profiles, I use Firefox Developer Edition on the same machine, but don't use multiple profiles with the stable edition of Firefox.
If you aren't using multiple profiles, you should probably file a different bug, because you are experiencing a different problem.
One thing that you might want to look into before you do, however, is Bug 1705217. That is the other common cause of this problem.
I feel like I should point out that this is a bug that we are attempting to fix, not the desired behavior. When Firefox has gotten to that point, it is unable to start the additional processes that it needs to function because the files that it needs are the wrong version (since they have been updated). We aren't giving you those two choices because we are trying to limit you. That's just the best we can do until this is fixed.
We also are not trying to force you to install updates before you can keep using Firefox. Firefox's update mechanism downloads updates while it is running and installs them at startup. In the case of Bug 1480452, Firefox gets launched when it is already running, causing files to be updated when another copy of Firefox is trying to use them. In the case of Bug 1705217, the package manager updates Firefox's files on its own schedule that is outside of Firefox's control. In both instances, Firefox had no intention of forcing updates to be installed at an inconvenient time.
This whole problem has a long story behind it running back to when Firefox used only a single process. When that fact changed, it effectively introduced this bug. Which, like I said, we are working on trying to fix.
(In reply to Kirk Steuber (he/him) [:bytesized] from comment #5)
I feel like I should point out that this is a bug that we are attempting to fix, not the desired behavior. When Firefox has gotten to that point, it is unable to start the additional processes that it needs to function because the files that it needs are the wrong version (since they have been updated). We aren't giving you those two choices because we are trying to limit you. That's just the best we can do until this is fixed.
Thanks for the info. I'll keep an eye on the other issues you've linked.
If you aren't using multiple profiles, you should probably file a different bug, because you are experiencing a different problem.
Since there are already multiple bugs open around the updating behaviour, I'll leave this for now (perhaps it was just a one-off for me). If it happens again on the next update I'll raise a new issue with more details.
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Comment 7•3 years ago
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Agree with many of the points OP made here. I've been running into this myself for quite some time (Fedora 33/34/35 + the newest versions of FF of the last year). But after reading, I am seeing 2 things that haven't been mentioned here thus far:
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This is significantly impacting to private browsing sessions. I saw profiles mentioned above, but profiles also have the advantage of being able to simply close and reopen (providing you have FF configured to "open previous windows and tabs") and while it's a disruption, it at least has the potential to be a very minor one if using a "restore tabs" configuration. With a private browsing session, ALL tabs/windows are lost when the browser restarts so this is significantly more frustrating (not weighing in on whether or not they should be closed on browser restart, only saying that the amount of effort to temporarily grab/save all of the tabs to some secondary file/memory buffer/etc and restart FF and then reload them is a significantly higher - not to mention it introduces more areas where privacy could be compromised such as a user copying a link to a text editor and restarting FF then forgetting to close text editor, or even simply forgetting to clear clipboard).
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Seems like a something that might be a good fit for an
about:configproperty to control/disable this behavior. To me, that seems like both the traditional approach for FF as well as a decent compromise between trying to get "the masses" to update the browser and giving those who have special circumstances or who are especially annoyed by the behavior a way to accept the risks and "opt out" of restarting the browser until they are finished with their session.
That said I do like the idea hinted at above about a handling this via containerized tabs instead of using an error message.
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Comment 8•3 years ago
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Also, forgot to mention that for anyone running into this, some addons that are helpful in at least making it slightly less frustrating:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bulkurlopener/
-> Can be used to copy links for ALL open tabs as well as to re-open those same links after you have restarted FF
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabhunter/
-> can be used to selectively copy certain tabs matching some search filter (can match against title or url, even supports regular expressions). i find it useful for things like copying say "all youtube videos" or "all reddit posts under /r/foss". Then restart FF and use bulkurlopener to open just the part of the session I wasn't quite done with.
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Comment 9•3 years ago
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(In reply to R. Zilligen from comment #7)
- Seems like a something that might be a good fit for an
about:configproperty to control/disable this behavior.
To disable what behavior? As I mentioned before
this is a bug that we are attempting to fix, not the desired behavior. When Firefox has gotten to that point, it is unable to start the additional processes that it needs to function because the files that it needs are the wrong version (since they have been updated). We aren't giving you those two choices because we are trying to limit you. That's just the best we can do until this is fixed.
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Comment 10•2 years ago
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I'm also experiencing this. It is extremely annoying. I use multiple profiles to manage multiple accounts, sets of bookmarks, and extensions that I don't want to get mixed up. My workaround may be to close one profile before opening the other, which is far from ideal.
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