Restart to Keep Using Firefox
I feel like I've been seeing people online complaining about this for a couple of years now, and it's shocking to me that I still couldn't find a solution in a thorough google search. Has anyone found a fix for the mandatory restart Firefox now pushes whenever there's an update available? Basically, out of nowhere, the program will refuse to open any new tabs or load any pages, instead giving the error message in the image. A restart is forced, and all private tabs are lost without warning. This is completely unacceptable browser behavior. As far as I know, there is no setting or about:config option that will fix this. Has anyone found a work-around?
I've been a loyal Firefox user for a couple of decades at this point, but this nonsense has me seriously considering switching to something else. Thanks for any help anyone can offer.
All Replies (4)
If you delay updates for too long they will eventually be forced and require a restart. It is better to apply them sooner at a convenient time to avoid any interruption.
If you want to do updates manually, you can enable the ManualAppUpdateOnly enterprise policy.
zeroknight said
If you delay updates for too long they will eventually be forced and require a restart. It is better to apply them sooner at a convenient time to avoid any interruption. If you want to do updates manually, you can enable the ManualAppUpdateOnly enterprise policy.
Thanks for this response. I think enterprise policy is a bit beyond me, though. I tried searching that phrase, and it took me to a github page with a bunch of files I don't know how to use. I gather those policies are for admins managing organizations, which is not my situation. I'm just a single user. I'd love a way to manage this via something simple like a setting or about:config. As an alternative, if you have a resource for easily understanding how to use enterprise policies, I'd also appreciate that. I tried googling it but didn't find anything helpful.
The real joke is I'm getting this issue on a work computer that's managed by my organization, and they've disabled app updates. So it seems like Firefox is forcing these random restarts just because an update is available, but no actual update can occur. As a result, I'm not sure if I'd even be able to use that enterprise policy to fix my situation.
See this link for general information. The Mozilla article is out of date.
https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/
For manual update see
https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#manualappupdateonly
The forced restart prompt only appears after an update has been applied. You should contact your organization about the update schedule.
You can see the active policies by visiting about:policies in the address bar.
You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.