No automatic or manual updates
Windows 7 Ultimate Firefox 10.0.2
When I click on Help|About Firefox a panel appears showing:
Firefox 10.0.2 Apply Update You are currently on the release update channel
Clicking on Apply Update results in Firefox restarting and returning in the same state, and still showing 10.0.2/Apply Update
If I click on Tools|Options|Advanced|Update and change from Automatically install updates (recommended: improved security) to Never check for updates (not recommended: security risk)
then Help|About Firefox shows the same details.
If I go to http://mozilla.org/firefox (redirected to http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/) the page shows Your Firefox is up to date.
If I go to http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/update/ the page shows: Congratulations! Your Firefox is up to date.
What is going on? How do I get Firefox to update automatically, or to allow me to manually update to version 11.0 (or whatever the current version is)? I could simply download it myself from www.mozilla.org as I have done in the past, but I'd rather it worked as advertised.
All Replies (4)
Hi,
Please also try right-clicking the Firefox icon and Run as administrator.
Hi,
Thank you for that.
It did work, but with problems.
When Firefox restarted after telling it to update, it was running in standard user mode and said that there was another instance running, so I had to close it down and run it again as administrator.
When it finally restarted, it had lost all of the tabs I was using, including all of the App Tabs. History showed no previous session, no recently closed tabs, and no recently closed windows. Still, I've got most of them back now. Is there any way to stop this happening in future? Is there a way to save the entire current state?
Firefox run as administrator now shows, under Help|About Firefox
Firefox
11.0
Firefox is up to date
When run in standard user mode, it shows
Firefox
11.0
Apply Update
Does this mean that I must always run Firefox as administrator if I want to get updates automatically? Or is there some way to persuade it to look for updates even when run in standard user mode.
Thanks again,
Mycroft
> Please try this: In the Windows Run box (Windows key + R) > type %localappdata%, OK, open Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox and delete any active-updates.xml, updates.xml files and updates folder. You may also have to check this in the normal Administrator account (i.e. the first account created during Windows installation) and any other Standard accounts, and also in the Firefox installation directory.
> After exiting Firefox in administrator mode and reopening in the usual way (Standard a/c) it would hopefully restore the previous tabs, bookmarks, history etc.
> Depending on the UAC setting on the system, Firefox would usually ask for permission before downloading/installing an update, when started in a Standard account. In this situation (usually default UAC), I think the update would happen from a Standard account after going through the UAC prompt.
> Please try this: In the Windows Run box (Windows key + R) > type %localappdata%, OK, open Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox and delete any active-updates.xml, updates.xml files and updates folder. You may also have to check this in the normal Administrator account (i.e. the first account created during Windows installation) and any other Standard accounts, and also in the Firefox installation directory.
I have done as you suggest above, but when I close and re-open Firefox in a standard account, Help|About Firefox still shows
Firefox
11.0
Apply Update
> After exiting Firefox in administrator mode and reopening in the usual way (Standard a/c) it would hopefully restore the previous tabs, bookmarks, history etc.
Unfortunately this did not happen. I have also lost all tabs in the past when Firefox has crashed (not every time). Fortunately History|Show all History has kept all its data, so I can reconstruct most of what was lost.
> Depending on the UAC setting on the system, Firefox would usually ask for permission before downloading/installing an update, when started in a Standard account. In this situation (usually default UAC), I think the update would happen from a Standard account after going through the UAC prompt.
I will keep my fingers crossed about this, but given the "Apply Update" shown in a standard account, compared with the "Firefox is up to date" shown when run as administrator I am not sure whether it will get that far. I shall wait and see what happens when the next update is rolled out.
Thank you very much for all the help you have offered. It is much appreciated.
Best regards,
Mycroft