Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox Nightly updates everytime I start it

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by SinTan

more options

Everytime I start Nightly, it shows a dialog seeking administrative rights. Then, it updates. Reset, reinstall, nothing worked. Can anyone help?

Everytime I start Nightly, it shows a dialog seeking administrative rights. Then, it updates. Reset, reinstall, nothing worked. Can anyone help?

Chosen solution

Anyway, yesterday Nightly got an update and it's fixed now. So, closing this.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (5)

more options

Firefox Nightly is a development test build, so it will receive updates frequently. Updates usually occur on a daily basis. This is the normal behavior.

If you are getting updates every single times that open Firefox, even after having just did an update, you may want to try a Clean Reinstall.

Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove your Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. This process does not remove your Firefox profile data (such as bookmarks and passwords), since that information is stored in a different location.

To do a clean reinstall of Firefox, please follow these steps: Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.

  1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
  2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu New Fx Menu and click the close button Close 29).
  3. Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
    • Windows:
      • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
      • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
    • Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
    • Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
  4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
    1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
    2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.

More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.

WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

more options

The Nightly development channel builds are meant more for Testers and Developers and not regular users. It gets updates two times a day after checkins. Sometimes this can lead to issue(s) until fixed, finished or reverted.

The more stable Beta/developers edition channel gets say nine to fourteen builds for a version on channel on average.

more options

James said

The Nightly development channel builds are meant more for Testers and Developers and not regular users. It gets updates two times a day after checkins. Sometimes this can lead to issue(s) until fixed, finished or reverted. The more stable Beta/developers edition channel gets say nine to fourteen builds for a version on channel on average.

I'm using Nightly for a long time. It's not the usual behavior. It updates literally every time I start it.

more options

Wesley Branton said

Firefox Nightly is a development test build, so it will receive updates frequently. Updates usually occur on a daily basis. This is the normal behavior. If you are getting updates every single times that open Firefox, even after having just did an update, you may want to try a Clean Reinstall. Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove your Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. This process does not remove your Firefox profile data (such as bookmarks and passwords), since that information is stored in a different location. To do a clean reinstall of Firefox, please follow these steps: Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.
  1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
  2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu New Fx Menu and click the close button Close 29).
  3. Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
    • Windows:
      • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
      • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
    • Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
    • Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
  4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
    1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
    2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.
More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here. WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

It doesn't work. Thanks for the effort though.

P.S. After reinstall (clean or not), it does work properly for a while. But, after downloading an update, it starts to misbehave again.

Modified by SinTan

more options

Chosen Solution

Anyway, yesterday Nightly got an update and it's fixed now. So, closing this.