Firefox won't detect new versions :: Help :: About :: Update
In the "Help/About Firefox" dialog box, when I click "Apply Update", FF shuts down, restarts, but remains on the current version. And still showing the same "Apply Update" option.
It seems to be unable to detect/download newer versions.
I recall fixing this several versions ago by deleting... something... But can't recall what it was. And it only worked once, then the problem came back every version update since then.
Obviously, I can manually download the new version (and I have, previously.) But I'd like to fix the actual problem.
(Exactly the same thing is happening in Thunderbird.)
All Replies (8)
Hi,
Please also try after right-clicking the Firefox icon and Run as administrator. If the problem persists you can try deleting the updates.xml file and the updates folder in the Firefox installation folder.
Got rid of the loop, but doesn't restore the correct behaviour of the About Firefox / About Thunderbird update dialog. Still requires me to do a manual update.
If you deleted the file/folder, you can now try to update it by using Run as administrator.
"Run as Admin" uses the Admin account profile (of which there is none). While updating this way does eventually update the User-profile version, it is no better than doing a manual update. The "About Firefox / About Thunderbird" dialog is still not working as it is supposed to.
If the Mozilla Maintenance Service is enabled, please see this for the different scenarios like the standard account and the administrator account updates. If the service is not enabled or if it fails, it would then fallback to the old UAC way: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Windows_Service_Silent_Update#When_the_service_fails
Note that the problem is not in the UAC, nor with user permissions, it is FF/TB failing to properly detect that the downloaded-and-ready-to-be-installed version is the same as the version already installed. Therefore, it offers an "Apply Update" option in the Help/About Firefox dialog which tries to re-install the current version. There is no error, or failure to reload. It simply never updates the dialog, never checks for a new version.
That could be possible. If there are any files like moz-firefox*, moz-update* in the folder you could try deleting those into the Recycle bin. You can also check for the updates.xml file and the updates folder in the %localappdata% Mozilla\Firefox folder in the different user accounts and delete those, if present (type %localappdata% in the Run box (Windows key + R), though as of version 13 this is very unlikely. Another possibility is that the updates were silently downloaded when in the administrator account (the first account created during Windows setup or another) and the Apply updates is being shown in a standard account Firefox. I think as of now it is not possible to update straight from a standard account unless started with Run as admin.
If files already have been downloaded then remove the files in the updates and updates\0 folder.
You can also delete active-update.xml and possibly updates.xml (this will clear the update history).
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Updates_reported_when_running_newest_version
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Software_Update (Software Update not working properly)
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox\updates (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Mozilla Firefox)
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