486038 - For non-admin users Firefox keeps saying update could not be installed even if admin installed it in the meantime

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)

Description

[Ben]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

You install Firefox on Windows XP. You mostly log in and work as a non administrator. A firefox update gets released and firefox keeps telling you that the update could not be installed each time you start it. So you log in as the administrator and update firefox. It runs happily for the administrator user. You log back in as the non administrator user and start Firefox. Firefox still tells you each time that the update could not be installed, even though the about box shows the latest correct version and it shows the wahtsnew page the first time the non-admin user runs it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Administrator installs Firefox. Non-administrator user mostly logs in and uses it.
2. A firefox update gets released.
3. The non admin users logs in and starts firefox.
Actual Results:  
Firefox says that the update could not be installed. Even if you log in as the administrator and install it, for the non administrator it will forever keep saying the update could not be installed, even if for the non administrator the about box shows the latest version.

Expected Results:  
When firefox starts up for a non adminstrator and there is a pending update that could not previously be installed, but has in the meantime been installed by an administrator user, firefox should be smart enough to stop saying there is an update that could not be installed. It should detect that this update that it keeps trying to install has in fact been installed by another user.

Alternatively for non-admin users it should have an option to not try to install updates, but just alert you or show some status warning.

There are work arounds for this:
- The admin user can log in and delete the directory "C:\Documents and Settings\(non admin user name)\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox\updates". For the non-admin user firefox will now run fine (until the next update when this will happen again).
- The non admin user can run firefox as administrator. This is not always possible on XP, for example if the admin user is not using a password, you can not do this.

This is very annoying because each time a new update comes out, this problem manifests, and it should be relatively simple to fix.

For details, see: http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?comments_parentId=171013&forumId=1

Comment 1

[Ben]

In previous versions you could not firefox as the non-admin user, but at least with the latest updates you can run it despite the warning you get each time.

Firefox is the best browser, it is just this recurring issue that annoys me (And other users if you follow the above link).

Comment 2

[Ben]

MM This appears to have been fixed.

Comment 3

[Ben]

No, I was wrong. Started Firefox under non-Admin user and it told me updates could not be installed. I logged in as the admin user, and it ran fine, there were no updates to install. I had to fix it by deleting "C:\Documents and
Settings\(non admin user name)\Local Settings\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox\updates" again.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

dup of bug 411294?

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Ben, are you still seeing this?

Comment 6

[The Beerslayer]

For what it's worth, this bug is still reproducible in Firefox 9.0.1.  It's astounding to me that a bug of this nature can survive six major version changes, even in a volunteer project like Firefox.  I wish I had the programming skill to fix it, but I don't.  Even an official workaround would be nice.  As it is, I get the "Software Update Failed" dialog EVERY time I launch Firefox from the non-admin account, even though it works fine launched from an admin account.

Comment 7

[Gary]

Still a problem in 14.0.1 There are four other submissions for this problem. See:
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=776386>
for summary.

Comment 8

[The Beerslayer]

Still happens for me in 14.0.1 as well.

I have not looked at the source (and wouldn't be able to follow it even if I did), so I may be typing out the wrong orifice here, but this is my hypothesis as to what's happening:

When Firefox starts up, one of the first things it does is to check the update directory (as in Ben's latest post) to see if there is a partial update that needs to be finished.  If any attempt had been made by the non-admin user to update Firefox (which would have failed due to permissions issues), there will be temporary files left behind in that directory that are flagged as incomplete.  So when Firefox checks that directory, it sees only a partial unfinished update and offers to finish it, completely mindless of the fact that an admin user has since performed this update to completion.

What it should probably do is when it detects those temp files, check its own actual version and if the actual version >= the temp files, delete the temp files and do not put up the error dialog.  Those temp files are useless anyway if the update cannot be performed successfully from a non-admin account.

If I'm wrong about what's happening, sorry for wasting your time.  If I'm right, though, this should be a trivial fix.

Comment 9

[Gary]

Beerslayer (great nick name)

If you checked the most recent submission for this Bug,
 <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=776386>
The suggestion there is a little more pro-active. When the Update is performed and successfully completed under the Admin Account, the 'clean up' (it is already deleting the files under the Admin Account) would be expanded to delete all update files under all user accounts.

I also think the modifications required to correct these problems are not complicated, but I will admit to not being familiar with the details of this specific environment, both in the actual program and the test/review/release process.  So the phrase, "no change is trivial" may accurately apply.

I have tried making inquires as to who is the QA contact for the Update/Tools component of Firefox.  Hopefully someone will respond.

Comment 10

[The Beerslayer]

Gary, thanks for the response.

I didn't look at any other report for this problem once I found this one, which matched my problem exactly.

I had assumed that the updater, once it completed the update process, would delete any and all temporary files it created.  It didn't occur to me that it would leave some of them behind just because they were downloaded under a different account.  You're right that those should be deleted when the update is successfully completed by the admin user.

At any rate, there is a second issue that probably should be addressed here: why is Firefox downloading update files while the user is logged in under an account that Firefox should readily determine cannot actually be used to perform the update?  Once Firefox figures out that the currently logged user does not have the permissions necessary to actually perform the update, it should never start downloading the update in the first place.  At least, IMNSHO.

But I do agree with you: few fixes are trivial.  My programming skills are limited to simple Pascal programs and the occasional Perl/PHP script, but even I should know better.  :)

Comment 11

[Gary]

Beerslayer,

Your second issue of checking for ADMIN before starting the Update is the first issue (bug) in the other submission.

Comment 12

[Phoenix]

I can't reproduce this issue under Fifefox 13.0.1-14.0.1 update, no any update messages after update under admin account so original problem is gone. For other see Bug 685202.

Comment 13

[Chris]

I'm staring at this issue right now. When first installed it requested privilege elevation. When I hit "Restart to Update" on the about dialog, Firefox restarts just fine but it doesn't update anything. A subsequent trip to the about dialog show the SAME version as before and the "Restart to Update" button remains. This continues, until I UNINSTALL Firefox and install the latest version. 

Correction on one of the above comments, Firefox USED to be the best browser, it's been going down hill now quite steadily for the past couple of years.

As a software developer, I honestly feel the status "RESOLVED WORKSFORME" is just wrong.  How many machines did you install it on?  How many OS's did you try it on?  Try it AGAIN on Windows 7 x64 and make bloody sure you're NOT an Administrator and the machine is on a Windows Domain. I can reproduce this problem EVERY time which is why I tell my clients NOT to use Firefox anymore, especially since this issue is 3 years old now and STILL not fixed.