"Restart to update Firefox" shown when Firefox is updated externally
Categories
(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)
Tracking
()
People
(Reporter: Steve, Unassigned)
References
Details
Attachments
(6 files)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/117.0
Steps to reproduce:
Firefox is set to 'Check for updates but let you choose to install them'. I've tried with background service enabled and disabled. I've also tried setting app.update.auto to false. This happens on all three PCs I have at work with Firefox and my one at home.
Actual results:
Occasionally, I will receive a notification about an update and then it works as expected but usually there is no notification and the update happens without any action on my part or any notification. This creates a problem because it then requires Firefox to be restarted at the most inconvenient times and unrecoverable loss of current work in private windows. As I understand it, updates will install automatically after being downloaded so to be clear, this it not a misunderstanding of that process. Unusually, updates both download and install themselves. Whenever an update installs itself, it creates a new desktop icon for Firefox which is also annoying but may also provide another clue as to what's going on. It also doesn't appear to ever create an entry in Update History. For example, 117 just installed itself but there is no entry for it in the Update History, nor is there one for 116.0.3 or 116.0.2 even though those versions were installed. There is one for 116.0 and 116.0.1 but I think those were instances where it correctly notified me about the update.
Expected results:
Update should notify but not download or install by itself.
|
||
Comment 1•3 years ago
|
||
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.
|
||
Comment 2•3 years ago
|
||
(In reply to Steve from comment #0)
Occasionally, I will receive a notification about an update and then it works as expected but usually there is no notification and the update happens without any action on my part or any notification.
I'm a little confused. First of all, which notification are we talking about here? Is it the big notification that takes up the entire page and says "Restart Required"? Is it one of the notifications that anchors itself to the hamburger menu at the top right corner of the screen? If the latter, which of these notifications are you seeing? The "Update available - do you want to download it?" notification? The "Update ready - do you want to restart now?" notification? The "Update failed" notification? The "Update available, but it can’t be installed because another copy of Firefox is running" notification?
As I understand it, updates will install automatically after being downloaded so to be clear, this it not a misunderstanding of that process.
This isn't quite right. Once an update is downloaded, we try to stage it, which should not interfere with Firefox running normally. We don't install it until Firefox launches next. This can cause problems when multiple profiles are used since launching Firefox with a second profile may install an update while the Firefox instance with the first profile is still running. Are you using multiple profiles simultaneously? Or are there multiple users logged into the machine at once?
Unusually, updates both download and install themselves. Whenever an update installs itself, it creates a new desktop icon for Firefox which is also annoying but may also provide another clue as to what's going on. It also doesn't appear to ever create an entry in Update History. For example, 117 just installed itself but there is no entry for it in the Update History, nor is there one for 116.0.3 or 116.0.2 even though those versions were installed. There is one for 116.0 and 116.0.1 but I think those were instances where it correctly notified me about the update.
It would be extremely odd for Firefox to update and not create an entry in the update history. When this happens, it typically means that something external is updating Firefox rather than Firefox updating itself. Often this is the result of administration software installed by a school or employer. Could this be happening on your machine?
The notification about the update is the one by the hamburger menu that shows up when it asks for the update like it is supposed to. The full screen restart required update is what I get regularly without having gotten the update available notification.
I saw someone in another thread say that if you download the update but don't restart, it will eventually install itself and force a restart.
I am the only logged in user on all three machines where I have this problem and I only have one profile in Firefox. My employer doesn't install Firefox so I know it isn't being updated by them, also I use it at home although there I usually, but not always, get the update notification. I saw your comment on the other thread so I have enabled update logging on my two work machines so I can provide that information the next time it happens.
Also, to make things more confusing, I noticed that it just seems to be my laptop that doesn't log the update. My desktop shows all the updates but marks almost all of them as failed even though I know all the updates went through.
|
|
||
Comment 5•3 years ago
|
||
(In reply to Steve from comment #3)
I saw someone in another thread say that if you download the update but don't restart, it will eventually install itself and force a restart.
That's not really accurate. This can kind of happen in certain circumstances, but it isn't this simple.
I am the only logged in user on all three machines where I have this problem and I only have one profile in Firefox. My employer doesn't install Firefox so I know it isn't being updated by them
I wouldn't be so confident about this. I have seen reports of antivirus software, for example, being configured such that it updates Firefox even though it didn't install Firefox.
also I use it at home although there I usually, but not always, get the update notification. I saw your comment on the other thread so I have enabled update logging on my two work machines so I can provide that information the next time it happens.
Great, why don't you let me know when this happens again and you can provide some logs.
|
Reporter | |
Comment 10•3 years ago
|
||
|
|
Reporter | |
Comment 11•3 years ago
|
||
|
|
Reporter | |
Comment 12•3 years ago
|
||
This happened again today with 117.0.1 update on both my PC and my laptop. I first got notifications that my tabs crashed and then got the restart message when refreshing and the new Firefox desktop icon. When I opened the about Firefox window, it had an 'Update to 117.0.1' button, which I did not click. I just restarted and now it says it is version 117.0.1. There is no record of the update in the Update History window on either machine. I followed the steps in bug report 1847745 on attaching the update files/logs from my desktop. I do not have a task in task scheduler for updating Firefox on my desktop. On my laptop, the task is disabled with the last run time of 10/6/2022 and a result of (0x15).
|
|
||
Comment 13•3 years ago
|
||
Your background update log shows that background update has not run recently. The "Update to 117.0.1" button is Firefox prompting you to download an update, indicating that Firefox has not even downloaded (let alone installed) an update during that session. last-update.log and backup-update.log both have timestamps that show that an Firefox hasn't staged or installed any updates yet this month, successfully or otherwise. Your update history agrees with this.
The conclusion is inescapable. You are not experiencing this problem because Firefox is updating itself. Something external is updating Firefox while it is running. You might want to revisit the assumption you made in comment 3 that because your employer didn't install Firefox, none of their tools/software would be updating it.
Usually problems like this get marked as duplicates of Bug 1705217, but we are no longer planning to fix that on Windows because it's not entirely clear what a reasonable fix would look like. When Firefox updates itself on Windows, we can put the out-of-date (but still in-use) files in a place that allows Firefox to keep functioning. When Firefox is externally updated on Linux, it is possible to keep Firefox running via use of a fork server. But when Firefox is externally updated on Windows, neither of these approaches work; fork isn't available and we have no idea where our files will be. So I don't think there is actually a reasonable way for us to solve this problem.
|
|
Reporter | |
Comment 15•3 years ago
|
||
Thanks Robin. Once I insisted that it was absolutely not something within Firefox that was triggering the updates, then my IT dept determined it was actually something on their end and is supposed to put in a exception. Since it doesn't sound like there is any reasonable way to work around this, maybe there is some way to provide a message that an update was coming or an external update happened? I think that there were many times where just knowing that an update happened would have allowed me to restart and reopen everything I needed before I needed it instead of only finding out once I tried to open a link.
|
|
||
Comment 16•3 years ago
|
||
(In reply to :Steve from comment #15)
maybe there is some way to provide a message that an update was coming
We intentionally don't try to alert the user immediately when an update is ready because we frequently see complaints about the high occurrence of update notifications in the uninstall survey. But you can override this by changing the pref app.update.badgeWaitTime (the number of seconds until we show the green dot on the hamburger menu icon) or app.update.promptWaitTime (the number of seconds until we show the update prompt popup) in about:config.
We can't really tell the difference between an update that has been downloaded and is going to be installed normally and an update that has been downloaded and is going to cause Bug 1480452 until the update has been installed and the bug has been triggered. So we can't show the prompt earlier only in that case.
Really, the better fix in this case is to fix Bug 1480452 entirely, which we are working on.
or an external update happened? I think that there were many times where just knowing that an update happened would have allowed me to restart and reopen everything I needed before I needed it instead of only finding out once I tried to open a link.
External applications that install Firefox updates don't exactly warn us that they are going to do this. Firefox only becomes aware of it when it tries to launch a process and finds that the new process is the wrong version. Which is to say that we are already telling the user about it as soon as Firefox becomes aware of the issue.
Really, if you want advance warning or other changes to the way this happens, I'd recommend talking to the authors of the software that is coming in and modifying Firefox's installation while it is running.
Description
•