1922331 - FireFox has started to update in our enterprise from version 115.15.0esr to 128.3.0esr but users are now getting "failed to read the configuration file" every time they open their browser.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Enterprise Policies, defect, P3)

Description

[is.office]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/128.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/128.0.0.0

Steps to reproduce:

Firefox is set to auto update in our enterprise and users have started to report today that when their browser updates from version 115.15.0esr to 128.3.0esr they are now getting "failed to read the configuration file" every time they open their browser. I clicked restart to update in my own Firefox browser and I now get the same message.

Actual results:

Updated from 115.15.0esr to 128.3.0esr.
Waited for the update, Firefox opened and "Failed to read the configuration file. Please contact your system administrator." message appeared.
Closed Firefox completely but same message.
Restarted but same message.

Expected results:

Firefox should have updated and opened without any errors appearing.

Comment 1

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Mike, this might be relevant for you (moving to Enterprise Policies for investigation).

Comment 2

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

It sounds like you're using autoconfig files that access Firefox internals which aren't well supported anymore.

If you can, go to about:config and search on

general.config.filename

Send me that file (it should be in the directory where Firefox is installed) and I can figure out what is not working and if it can be worked around or if there is something you can change.

Comment 3

[is.office]

Attachment: pplockdown.cfg

Comment 4

[is.office]

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #2)

It sounds like you're using autoconfig files that access Firefox internals which aren't well supported anymore.

If you can, go to about:config and search on

general.config.filename

Send me that file (it should be in the directory where Firefox is installed) and I can figure out what is not working and if it can be worked around or if there is something you can change.

Hi Mike,
Many thanks for your reply. I had been doing a bit more digging on this in the meantime too. We also run software called PolicyPak which I think may be related to the issue as the general.config.filename points to pplockdown.cfg. I tested the update on a PC without PolicyPak and there were no issues, so I have also reached out to their support team.
I will send you the cfg file in case you spot anything obvious or can help in any way.
Kind regards,

Comment 5

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

It looks like it includes other files that are probably creating the problem.

Best thing is to reach out to PolicyPak (I will as well, as I know the CEO)

Comment 6

[is.office]

Thanks Mike.
Tried to uninstall Firefox 128.3.0esr to roll back to Firefox 115.15.0esr, for testing, but 128.3.0esr will not uninstall now - just hangs at the Uninstalling Firefox... window.
Out of Office tomorrow so will catch up on this again on Monday morning.

Comment 7

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:mkaply, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 8

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

So it looks like that error dialog breaks the updater:

See bug 1895020

Were you able to get a fix from policy pak?

Comment 9

[is.office]

Thanks for this Mike. PolicyPak are still working on the issue so we have halted all updates for now.

Comment 10

[is.office]

PolicyPak provided an updated Client-Side Extension (24.11.4093).

I’m having mixed results.

Some whose FF had updated previously to 128.3.0 esr running PP CSE’s 3969 or 4019 and were getting the "Failed to read configuration file. Please contact system administrator" error are still getting the config error when opening Firefox.

However, some machines work fine after updating PP CSE to 4093 with FF updating to version 128.5.1 esr – no issues!

Trying to figure out how to get rid of this error now on any of the machines affected by this. Is Firefox going to need to be uninstalled and reinstalled on all affected machines!?

Comment 11

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

You should just be able to delete one file.

Can you tell me what files are in the directory:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref
or
C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref

on the machines that are still having the problem?

Comment 12

[is.office]

Two files in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref called channel-prefs.js and local-settings.js

Comment 13

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Can you post the contents of local-settings.js? It shouldn't have anything company specific in it.

Comment 14

[is.office]

Settings related to PolicyPak in there:

pref("general.config.filename", 'pplockdown.cfg');
pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);

Comment 15

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

That's what I thought. So if you just want to get rid of the error, you can delete local-settings.js and autoconfig won't be read anymore.

But those machines won't have policy pak anymore.

Comment 16

[is.office]

Catch22!! We still need PolicyPak to be applied so unfortunately not an option for us. Thanks for all your help Mike.

Comment 17

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Were you able to get a fix from PolicyPak?

Comment 18

[is.office]

Mike apologies I forgot to update here!

PolicyPak released a new software build (version 4093), on 27th November 2024, containing several fixes and improvements, including the fix for the issue we were facing.

The majority of our environment worked fine after updating PolicyPak CSE to version 4093, with Firefox updating to version 128.5.1 ESR.
A minority of machines, whose Firefox had updated previously to 128.3.0 ESR running PP CSE’s 3969 or 4019 and were getting the config error were still getting the config error when opening Firefox. A reinstall of Firefox fixed these select few.

Comment 19

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Great to hear.