Beta update channel, but updates disabled
Categories
(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)
Tracking
()
People
(Reporter: ed, Unassigned)
References
Details
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:125.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/125.0
Steps to reproduce:
Installed Firefox beta in a directory writable by by user account. The version I installed was 125.0b6. Then waited a week or two for a new beta version to come out (the current is 126.0beta).
Start Firefox, go to Help -> About Firefox.
Actual results:
It shows
Firefox Browser
Updates disabled by your organization
125.0b6 (64-bit) What's new
Firefox Help Submit Feedback
You are currently on the beta update channel.
But this is contradictory. If on the beta update channel, Firefox should download and install new beta versions. It doesn't help anyone to stay on an outdated beta, not the user, nor Mozilla, who want to get bug reports and testing from the current beta not an old one.
Expected results:
Since Firefox is on the beta update channel it should update to the latest beta release.
If it really can't do that, then the help text should say something clearer like "Updates are disabled by your organization, so you're staying on this beta release, although a newer one is available." Then I'd know to manually download and install the new version.
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Comment 1•1 year 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•1 year ago
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Hi there, thanks for the report! Can you clarify whether this message is showing up erroneously on your personal computer or if you're on an enterprise machine (even though you installed in a user directory)? From a surface level examination of the relevant code which prompts this message, it should only show up if you have the enterprise policy "DisableAppUpdate": true. This could live in <YourProgramDir>\Mozilla Firefox\distribution\policies.json if it's a personal machine.
It's an enterprise machine where I installed in a user directory. That user directory does not contain a policies.json file or a distribution/ subdirectory.
The machine does have a centrally installed copy of Firefox under C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox and that installation does indeed contain a policies.json with "DisableAppUpdate": true. So perhaps it's a bug that Firefox installed somewhere else is picking up the policies from a separate installation. Let me see what happens if I make a policies file for my user-installed copy.
But it's also true that even if the policy were being picked up and applied correctly, it doesn't really square well with being on the beta update channel. I think an update channel has to imply that you get updates.
I experimented with creating distribution/policies.json in my user-installed Firefox directory. First I created the policies file as empty:
{
"policies": {}
}
On starting Firefox it still showed updates were disabled. Then I tried explicitly forcing the flag off:
{
"policies": {
"DisableAppUpdate": false
}
}
Still the same. So I think it's fair to conclude that Firefox, although started from this directory, is taking its policies from a different location which also has Firefox installed, and is ignoring the policies set in its own installed directory.
Let me know if you need me to try anything else. By the way, I have since upgraded to 126.0b2 (by downloading the installer and running it) so these tests were against that version.
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Comment 5•1 year ago
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I believe that prioritizing the Program Files installation of Firefox for enterprise policies is actually as intended. I'm going to be marking this as a WONTFIX although I'll also file a bug tracking enhancing the message and making it more clear what users can and can't do, especially if the other install is in a regular user directory.
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Updated•1 year ago
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Thanks for looking into this. I think that the original question of the bug report kind of got lost, though. It wasn't my intention to question Firefox's policies about whether updates are enabled or not -- I know they get decided in a dark and mysterious way, and while you can argue about whether it makes sense to apply a config XML from one installation to a different installation, that's something we end users have to simply accept.
My question was specifically about the beta update channel (and other fast-updating channels such as Firefox Nightly). Are you at Mozilla quite sure that you want to block updates through these channels? I would have expected you have an interest in making sure beta and nightly testers get on the latest version. That's kind of different from the trade-off you want for a stable release.
Description
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