7 ms·

It's a mystery to me how Firefox updates on Ubuntu. Sometimes it goes through auto updates, but sometimes I'll try to open a new tab and it tells me that it wil

It's a mystery to me how Firefox updates on Ubuntu. Sometimes it goes through auto updates, but sometimes I'll try to open a new tab and it tells me that it will NOT allow me to do that until I restart. This is exceptionally annoying and not something that happens on Windows. What is this related to?

BeefWellington 4y ago
IME Firefox does this when the OS updates packages that Firefox depends on and/or changes FF version. I can't speak to Ubuntu specifically but I've seen the same behavior on Arch and Fedora and it's always around OS updates that I've triggered manually.
- Izkata 4y ago
  Ubuntu (at least pre-snap) has Firefox in unattended-upgrades so apt can update Firefox in the background even if the user never runs updates themselves.
mlvljr 4y ago
pxc 4y ago
On Windows, Firefox can't be updated while it's running because the files that comprise it are locked by the running application. On Linux, you can delete or replace open files, and even running applications. Instead of updates being handled by dozens of individual updaters that coordinate closely with each app so that updates happen between restarts, updates happen in the background without really coordinating with running apps. Sometimes, after Firefox has been updated, there's some kind of incompatibility between the old running binary and the new assets (internal JS, CSS, and idk what else). In that case, Firefox can't open new tabs because you're still running the old binary, which doesn't work with the new assets which have been installed, or which is looking for old assets that it opens dynamically at runtime that are simply no longer present on your disk.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  A side effect from UNIX vs VMS school of OS design, in relation to how files should be handled.
- noAnswer 4y ago
  > On Windows, Firefox can't be updated while it's running because the files that comprise it are locked by the running application. I don't know how the "behind the scenes" work but you can run an update while Firefox is running. We do it all the time. We push security updates to our clients via an agent. It runs the official installer in silent mode. It is like OP described: You can't open new tabs (ok you can but they will not work) until you restart the browser, but the existing tabs keep working.
duped 4y ago
It's explained here pretty well: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1492023 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1492023 My reading is that if your package manager updates FF on disk while it's running, it can no longer guarantee that new tabs can be created safely, since creating a tab requires spawning a child process and the parent was created with an executable that no longer exists/knows anything about the executable it needs to use when spawning. It is super annoying and I feel like there are some obvious fixes. I'm also not 100% sure why it only happens on Linux (it updates fine on Windows and MacOS while running right?)
- cprecioso 4y ago
  My Microsoft Edge on macOS breaks when updates are applied (through my company's 3rd party updater). New tabs just go blank.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- AndrewDucker 4y ago
  On Windows it downloads the updater in the background and then executes it when you next restart Firefox. (At least, as far as I can tell)
  - masklinn 4y ago
    Yes, but that's because it's updated by firefox itself. If you install, say, FDE directly on linux, you'll get the same behaviour. But if you use the distro's package manager then I don't think there's a viable workflow for it, as the package manager doesn't have hooks into process management. The package manager would probably have to be subsumed by systemd for that to even be feasible.
- Saris 4y ago
  On windows it just doesn't do the update until the browser is closed. It's odd that they don't have the same behavior on linux.

BeefWellington 4y ago

IME Firefox does this when the OS updates packages that Firefox depends on and/or changes FF version. I can't speak to Ubuntu specifically but I've seen the same behavior on Arch and Fedora and it's always around OS updates that I've triggered manually.

Izkata 4y ago
Ubuntu (at least pre-snap) has Firefox in unattended-upgrades so apt can update Firefox in the background even if the user never runs updates themselves.

mlvljr 4y ago

pxc 4y ago

On Windows, Firefox can't be updated while it's running because the files that comprise it are locked by the running application. On Linux, you can delete or replace open files, and even running applications. Instead of updates being handled by dozens of individual updaters that coordinate closely with each app so that updates happen between restarts, updates happen in the background without really coordinating with running apps. Sometimes, after Firefox has been updated, there's some kind of incompatibility between the old running binary and the new assets (internal JS, CSS, and idk what else). In that case, Firefox can't open new tabs because you're still running the old binary, which doesn't work with the new assets which have been installed, or which is looking for old assets that it opens dynamically at runtime that are simply no longer present on your disk.

pjmlp 4y ago
A side effect from UNIX vs VMS school of OS design, in relation to how files should be handled.
noAnswer 4y ago
> On Windows, Firefox can't be updated while it's running because the files that comprise it are locked by the running application. I don't know how the "behind the scenes" work but you can run an update while Firefox is running. We do it all the time. We push security updates to our clients via an agent. It runs the official installer in silent mode. It is like OP described: You can't open new tabs (ok you can but they will not work) until you restart the browser, but the existing tabs keep working.

duped 4y ago

It's explained here pretty well: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1492023 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1492023 My reading is that if your package manager updates FF on disk while it's running, it can no longer guarantee that new tabs can be created safely, since creating a tab requires spawning a child process and the parent was created with an executable that no longer exists/knows anything about the executable it needs to use when spawning. It is super annoying and I feel like there are some obvious fixes. I'm also not 100% sure why it only happens on Linux (it updates fine on Windows and MacOS while running right?)

cprecioso 4y ago
My Microsoft Edge on macOS breaks when updates are applied (through my company's 3rd party updater). New tabs just go blank.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
AndrewDucker 4y ago
On Windows it downloads the updater in the background and then executes it when you next restart Firefox. (At least, as far as I can tell)
- masklinn 4y ago
  Yes, but that's because it's updated by firefox itself. If you install, say, FDE directly on linux, you'll get the same behaviour. But if you use the distro's package manager then I don't think there's a viable workflow for it, as the package manager doesn't have hooks into process management. The package manager would probably have to be subsumed by systemd for that to even be feasible.
Saris 4y ago
On windows it just doesn't do the update until the browser is closed. It's odd that they don't have the same behavior on linux.