thunderbird 38.6.0 request standard user account to update again, even though administrator account update it already in the same notebook
I find the odd situation in updating thunderbird 38.6.0 under Microsoft windows professional. I login the administrator account, and update the thunderbird as usual and success. Then login in the same machine with standard user account, double click the thunderbird icon to start the thunderbird, but "Thunderbird Software Updater" request me to login administrator account to update the thunderbird !!!! I administrate many of such PCs and notebooks, I cannot update all user accounts in all machines. User can click away the update, and it appears every time when it runs. Even though I try to allow it to update, it always fails... sometimes like 'partial update fails, need to re-download the copy'...
For your information, in past, after the update via administrator account, when I check back the version under the standard user account, the version number is correct, but the update button is always here in the About Window.
Please help.
Chosen solution
In general, Thunderbird needs Administrator privileges to install as well as to update. For updating with an unprivileged user account this can be done - either via Mozilla Maintenance Service (which requires Administrator privileges when being installed), or - accepting the Windows UAC prompt
The update needs to be done only once system wide, not per user. Possibly an unprivileged user attempted the update, but that failed. Because the update was downloaded for that user account. TB (or Windows respectively) will now prompted at each start for Administrator permissions to run the update.
Check the following path: C:\Users\<user id>\AppData\Local\Thunderbird\updates
Close Thunderbird and delete anything underneath 'updates'. Start Thunderbird.
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Try to download the full installer from https://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/ and run it with Administrator permissions.
Re-install with full installer does not help.
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In general, Thunderbird needs Administrator privileges to install as well as to update. For updating with an unprivileged user account this can be done - either via Mozilla Maintenance Service (which requires Administrator privileges when being installed), or - accepting the Windows UAC prompt
The update needs to be done only once system wide, not per user. Possibly an unprivileged user attempted the update, but that failed. Because the update was downloaded for that user account. TB (or Windows respectively) will now prompted at each start for Administrator permissions to run the update.
Check the following path: C:\Users\<user id>\AppData\Local\Thunderbird\updates
Close Thunderbird and delete anything underneath 'updates'. Start Thunderbird.
Thanks christ1 for workarounds. It works. I need to delete all updates of all users in each machine, and disable the auto-update settings in thunderbird for these accounts.
I always apply update via administrator account.
I think the way of Thunderbird to store the update and apply the update in user(s) folder is not practical to the machine with multiple standard user accounts.
the thunderbird update service does not check for the version of current installation against the pending updates in the user(s) folder, even though one of the users in the machine update it.
We have the same problem, but the accepted solution above does not work, although is not yet clear why.
We install TB as local or network administrators, levasing updates managed by the maintenance service. Most users (50 total) are not privileged on their machines. Lan is a Windows AD.
We run several tests, and our conclusion seems to point out that all Windows 7 (pro) machines that in the past months auto-updated (without prompts to users) to 38.5.1, cannot use the updater service to upgrade to 38.6.0, and when they find and download the 38.6.0 update, at the next TB start they get a prompt asking to install the (signed) update, but asking them administrator username/password.
It seems that if a machine has stopped somehow upgrading at 38.5.0 or 38.4.0, instead, the update rolls out as usual, without any user prompt, drectly to 38.6.0.
To solve those updates on 38.5.1 machines, the only solution now is that we, as administrators run the diff update prompted (or probably use a full 38.6.0 install package), but this is not easy to do on 50 and more machines... let's hope this will not happen again in the future, whatever it is.
Could it be that this issue is related to the "new signing requirements" referenced in the 38.5.1 release notes (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/38.5.1/releasenotes), since it is the only change reported there?
A better logging by the updater service would also probably help, in particular when it fails, as we found that nothing useful is logged into in %programdata%\Mozilla\logs.
Thanks.
Modified by m.ardito
Could it be that this issue is related to the "new signing requirements" referenced in the 38.5.1 release notes
That's unlikely, only Windows XP doesn't fulfill the "new signing requirements" .