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When I start Firefox I get a bar stating "Software Update Failed"

  • 1 reply
  • 23 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

daveloenker
daveloenker
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In the body of the bar is says--The update could not be installed. Please make sure there are hno other copies of Firefox running on your computer, and then restart Firefox to try again. I click ok and Firefox starts. I go to help and click Apply download and it says that it can't. Check history of downloads and it says the last download was on December 1969, yes 1969. I was twelve and the only computer that I knew of was one on an air force base and it was as big as a house, water cooled and vacuum tubes. Quite a site.

In the body of the bar is says--The update could not be installed. Please make sure there are hno other copies of Firefox running on your computer, and then restart Firefox to try again. I click ok and Firefox starts. I go to help and click Apply download and it says that it can't. Check history of downloads and it says the last download was on December 1969, yes 1969. I was twelve and the only computer that I knew of was one on an air force base and it was as big as a house, water cooled and vacuum tubes. Quite a site.

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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See:

Remove the files in the updates and updates\0 folder: 

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox\updates
(%LOCALAPPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox\updates)

You may need to do a clean (re)install:

  • Download a fresh Firefox copy from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html and save the file to the desktop.
  • Uninstall your current Firefox version and remove the Firefox program folder before installing that copy of the Firefox installer.
  • Don't remove personal data if you uninstall the current version.
  • It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.

You do not need to create a new profile, that is not necessary for this issue.

Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere (not in the Firefox program folder) and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.