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Firefox on Windows 7 fails to update without any error messages

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I'm having an issue with updating Firefox 62.0.2 -> 62.0.3 on Win7. I updated through Help>About menu, and it downloads, but when it goes to restart, it does nothing...no error messages either. As far as I can tell, Firefox spawns updater.exe which immediately quits. After this Firefox no longer appears to work, and the only way I can get it to start again is to delete the AppData/Local/Mozilla/updates/ folder which prevents updater.exe from running.

The same thing happened going from 62.0.0 to 62.0.2, and I ended up downloading Firefox from the website and re-installing. I really prefer not to do this every time there's an update. Previously, updating through Firefox itself was fine and I never had any issues.

I used SysInternal's ProcMon to monitor file access and the only thing I see updater.exe do is load some DLL files and then immediately close itself. Also, it fails to find api-ms-win-core-fibers-l1-1-1.DLL, api-ms-win-core-localization-l1-2-1.DLL, and api-ms-win-appmodel-runtime-l1-1-2.DLL. Without any error messages or logs, missing DLLs is the only thing I can think of. Problem is I don't know how to find those DLLs (doing a web search for missing DLLs leads to all kind of bad sites). Also, I ran SFC /scannow (system file check) to check for corrupted DLLs but it didn't find any problems.

Some other info about my setup and Firefox install, that could potentially affect things:

  • I use mklink to symbolically link AppData\Roaming\Mozilla from my C: drive (SDD) to D: drive (regular HDD), but I've never had an issue with this. Updater.exe never gets to the point of reading any files from there though, so I doubt that's the problem.
  • I block outgoing connections in Windows Firewall with a list of application exceptions (firefox.exe and updater.exe are allowed). If I set this back to (the default) allowing all outgoing connection, updating Firefox still fails, so I don't think it's a network or firewall problem.
  • I set various browser settings through a user.js file, but I've tried creating a fresh new profile before updating, and it still didn't work, so I don't believe any of my settings are affecting it.
  • Windows 7 is completely up to date.
  • My antivirus software, Microsoft Security Essentials, is also updated, and I have no viruses or malware.
I'm having an issue with updating Firefox 62.0.2 -> 62.0.3 on Win7. I updated through Help>About menu, and it downloads, but when it goes to restart, it does nothing...no error messages either. As far as I can tell, Firefox spawns updater.exe which immediately quits. After this Firefox no longer appears to work, and the only way I can get it to start again is to delete the AppData/Local/Mozilla/updates/ folder which prevents updater.exe from running. The same thing happened going from 62.0.0 to 62.0.2, and I ended up downloading Firefox from the website and re-installing. I really prefer not to do this every time there's an update. Previously, updating through Firefox itself was fine and I never had any issues. I used SysInternal's ProcMon to monitor file access and the only thing I see updater.exe do is load some DLL files and then immediately close itself. Also, it fails to find api-ms-win-core-fibers-l1-1-1.DLL, api-ms-win-core-localization-l1-2-1.DLL, and api-ms-win-appmodel-runtime-l1-1-2.DLL. Without any error messages or logs, missing DLLs is the only thing I can think of. Problem is I don't know how to find those DLLs (doing a web search for missing DLLs leads to all kind of bad sites). Also, I ran SFC /scannow (system file check) to check for corrupted DLLs but it didn't find any problems. Some other info about my setup and Firefox install, that could potentially affect things: * I use mklink to symbolically link AppData\Roaming\Mozilla from my C: drive (SDD) to D: drive (regular HDD), but I've never had an issue with this. Updater.exe never gets to the point of reading any files from there though, so I doubt that's the problem. * I block outgoing connections in Windows Firewall with a list of application exceptions (firefox.exe and updater.exe are allowed). If I set this back to (the default) allowing all outgoing connection, updating Firefox still fails, so I don't think it's a network or firewall problem. * I set various browser settings through a user.js file, but I've tried creating a fresh new profile before updating, and it still didn't work, so I don't believe any of my settings are affecting it. * Windows 7 is completely up to date. * My antivirus software, Microsoft Security Essentials, is also updated, and I have no viruses or malware.

Todas las respuestas (6)

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download the latest version and install it without deleting firefox, just install it and it will update.

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Yes, of course I can download the latest version from the web site and re-install over the existing install, but I don't want to have to do that each time there's an update. I want Firefox to be able to update itself. I would be forced to turn off updates in Firefox's settings since that method of updating renders Firefox unable to start itself.

I need to find a way to find out why updater.exe is failing without displaying an error or logging any messages anywhere.

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fire fox update error:

auto updates:

about updater.exe ,

make sure your security software not blocking updater.exe from accesing internet.

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None of those support articles helped. Here's what I did:

  • disabled antivirus
  • firewall reset to allow all connections
  • rebooted
  • made new firefox profile (firefox.exe -p)
  • started firefox as Administrator with new profile
  • help>about to check for updates
  • firefox downloaded update for 62.0.3
  • clicked "Restart to update Firefox" button
  • firefox closes itself
  • checked process list (for all users), and firefox.exe doesn't exist, nor does updater.exe
  • started firefox again as Administrator, and nothing happens, no window appears, no errors, no nothing
  • checked process list (for all users), and firefox.exe doesn't exist, nor does updater.exe

Once again, the problem is that updater.exe essentially does nothing but close itself. I never even get to see Firefox or any sort of window or popup error message or anything. Monitoring file access also shows no log or anything is created by updater.exe.

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ok , try to disconnect internet connection before installing firefox, and if it didn't help, try to install it in windows safe mode.

ans see this answer about updater.exe :

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Tried disconnecting internet and updating, and I also tried the windows safe mode with networking, but neither of those worked.

Fortunately I did manage to update Firefox manually though by following the steps on here:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:Manually_Installing_a_MAR_file

This leads me to believe that Firefox is incorrectly sending command line arguments to updater.exe. Unfortunately it also doesn't solve my problem, but at least I can install the update manually if needed.

Here's what I did, in case anyone finds themselves in my situation:

  • In Firefox, go to Help>About and let it download the update
  • Press the restart Firefox button (at this point updater.exe runs but doesn't work correctly for me)
  • Create a folder called C:\app-update
  • Copy update.mar from C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Mozilla\updates\308046B0AF4A39CB\updates\0\ (numbers and username will be different) to the clipboard (Ctrl-c)
  • Paste update.mar to C:\app-update (Ctrl-v)
  • Copy C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\updater.exe and updater.ini to the clipboard (Ctrl-c)
  • Paste updater.exe and updater.ini to C:\app-update (Ctrl-v)
  • Run Command Console (cmd.exe) as an Admin (ctrl-shift-click the icon in your start menu, or right-click and Run as Administrator)
  • Change directory to app-update: cd c:\app-update
  • Run the updater with the following: updater.exe c:\app-update "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox"
  • If the previous step didn't work for some reason, try redirecting standard output and standard error to a file with the following: updater.exe c:\app-update "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" > log.txt 2>&1 ...and then view log.txt
  • You should now see a progress bar pop up as Firefox applies the update
  • Open the text file C:\app-update\update.status and hopefully it should say "success."
  • Open the text file C:\app-update\update.log to see the results if you're curious or if something went wrong.
  • If everything was successful, delete the folder C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Mozilla\updates
  • Start Firefox