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Why am I having to restart Nightly nearly everyday for small update versions? It's a bit frustrating.

  • 19 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by James

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I open up Mozilla to my saved tabs and a box pops up stating Nightly needs to restart to update. I usually have my pc on "sleep" but wonder if I can just do one big update and get it over with?

I open up Mozilla to my saved tabs and a box pops up stating Nightly needs to restart to update. I usually have my pc on "sleep" but wonder if I can just do one big update and get it over with?

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Jon said

(Dangerous method for switching channels provided.

If you are referring to the way to change channels that I posted, it is not at all dangerous, just a little bit of work. It is easier to just download a build on the channel you want to be on instead.

Also the links you posted have already been posted ;)

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All Replies (19)

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You cannot do one big update and get it all over with, if that were possible, firefox would do it. The small updates are caused by being on the nightly channel. Nightly is updates for testing that Mozilla is testing out to decide whether they are stable enough to be in firefox. I would suggust changing your update channel by going to about:config. Type "channel" into the search bar in about:config. Double click the first setting that comes up (app.update.channel) and then enter in the value "aurora". Make sure you spell it correctly, otherwise you will have no more updates.

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The Nightly and Aurora development channels gets checkins almost everyday so therefore they get a update each of those days. If you miss the partial updates you will get a more full update.

Any particular reasonably n why you are Testing the Nightlies besides the fact that you have the Win64 builds.

You can follow the changes and discussions on Nightly's each day at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=23

Modified by James

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Jon said

I would suggust changing your update channel by going to about:config. Type "channel" into the search bar in about:config. Double click the first setting that comes up (app.update.channel) and then enter in the value "aurora". Make sure you spell it correctly, otherwise you will have no more updates.

Changing this particular Preference has no impact as it is more for to show what channel you on. You have to manually edit a file to change the channel you are on.

edit: To further on this the preference was only used from Firefox 1.5 and stopped when Firefox 4.0 was released.

You have to change it in a channel-prefs.js file in Firefox program folder when Firefox is closed. The channels are release, esr, beta, aurora and nightly.

Modified by James

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Hello

James said

The Nightly and Aurora development channels gets checkins almost everyday so therefore they get a update each of those days

hence the name Nightly :-)

thanks

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ideato said

James said
The Nightly and Aurora development channels gets checkins almost everyday so therefore they get a update each of those days

hence the name Nightly :-)

thanks

The word Nightly only refers to one specific channel though, not referring to the updates or the folder they are in. The Aurora (now aka Developers Edition) just happen to get checkins almost everyday also.

Modified by James

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James said

The word Nightly only refers to one specific channel though, not referring to the updates or the folder they are in.

Yes, i known that, it is a joke...... Minefield it was the previous name of Nightly, no connection with daily/nightly updates.

cheers

Modified by ideato

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Minefield was the codename of the Trunk actually but when Firefox 4.0 came about the codenames of the branches stopped and Nightly essentially started in place of Trunk and there was the Beta and Aurora channels.

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Jon said

You cannot do one big update and get it all over with, if that were possible, firefox would do it. The small updates are caused by being on the nightly channel. Nightly is updates for testing that Mozilla is testing out to decide whether they are stable enough to be in firefox. I would suggust changing your update channel by going to about:config. Type "channel" into the search bar in about:config. Double click the first setting that comes up (app.update.channel) and then enter in the value "aurora". Make sure you spell it correctly, otherwise you will have no more updates.
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Jon,

Thank you for your response. I am not super techy just dislike IE. Where do I find my "update channel" and type in "about:config"? I have Windows 8 (unfortunately) and I cannot find it here or a place on Mozilla. Can you get a little more detailed here? I like your response and think it will do the trick and I am ever so grateful! Thank you for you time! : )

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You type about:config in the Location (address) bar like you would say www.example.com

As I said there is no point trying to change this app.update.channel preference as nothing will happen as it not been used this way since Firefox 4.0 came out. It only just shows what channel you are currently on.

As Nightly builds are for Testers and devs in mind the updates should be allowed as a random Nightly build is not really meant to be used like a Release.

Modified by James

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Okay, well my boyfriend told me since I got my win8 PC that Firefox itself wasn't working smoothly so to use Nightly. Since I started now it's done these stinkin' updates. LOL! I am frustrated. Son if I make sure i have Firefox 4.0 installed I should just use that instead of Nightly? : )

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No don't use that you can change the update channel. The fix that I gave you is out of date. I have another one just give me 1 second I'll get it up here.

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The easiest way to fix this is to just download Firefox. Go to www.getfirefox.com, download Firefox 35.0.1. It updates every 6 weeks. You can remove nightly (just make sure you tell it to keep your personal information) or leave it on your machine. Don't mess around with about:config or anything, just download a new version.

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You can't switch the update channel via the about:config page. You can only do that by installing the full version of a specific update channel (the channel-prefs.js file is never affected by a minor update).

You can find the full version of the current Firefox 35.0.1 release in all languages and for all operating systems here:

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(Dangerous method for switching channels provided. Please just download the release version of Firefox from www.getfirefox.com) Or https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Modified by Jon Gregory

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It is still better to do a clean install of the current release to make sure that there aren't leftover files from the Nightly build that can cause issues when the release gets to 38.

You should also use a new profile for the same reason. You should always be cautious when you downgrade, especially if alpha builds like the Nightly versions are involved that set specific prefs to true to make it possible to test new features, that aren't ready yet in the developer version (Aurora) and beta.

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Chosen Solution

Jon said

(Dangerous method for switching channels provided.

If you are referring to the way to change channels that I posted, it is not at all dangerous, just a little bit of work. It is easier to just download a build on the channel you want to be on instead.

Also the links you posted have already been posted ;)

Modified by James

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The "dangerous fix provided" is referring to my solution, which was potentially unsafe.

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Jon said

The "dangerous fix provided" is referring to my solution, which was potentially unsafe.

It was not unsafe, just that it would not do anything as it has not worked this way since before Firefox 4.0