Hi

Before we look at the updated issue, keen to make sure there is not an underlying issue that may cause problems in the future.

In order to assist you better, please follow the steps below to provide us crash IDs to help us learn more about your crash.

The crash report is several pages of data. We need the report numbers to see the whole report.

1. Enter about:crashes in the Firefox address bar and press Enter. A list of Submitted (and Unsubmitted, if any) Crash Reports will appear, similar to the one shown below.
2. Copy the 5 most recent Submitted Report IDs that start with bp- and then go back to your forum question and paste those IDs into the "Post a Reply" box.

Note: If a recent Report ID does not start with bp- click on it to submit the report.

(Please don't take a screenshot of your crashes, just copy and paste the IDs. The below image is just an example of what your Firefox screen should look like.)

Thank you for your help!

More information and further troubleshooting steps can be found in the Troubleshoot Firefox crashes (closing or quitting unexpectedly) article.

Note that current is 127.0.2 and 128.0 is scheduled for release Tuesday next week.

• https://whattrainisitnow.com/calendar/
• https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html

I assume that you didn't get the option to submit a crash report since you wrote that you got tab crash (Gah. Your tab just crashed). Do you get tab crashes more often?

You can disable updating in the background via the Settings page.

• Settings -> General -> Firefox Updates
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-options-preferences-and-settings

Hi Before we look at the updated issue, keen to make sure there is not an underlying issue that may cause problems in the future. In order to assist you better, please follow the steps below to provide us crash IDs to help us learn more about your crash.

Apologies, I probably got back to this too late. Firefox doesn't show any reports submitted. However, as I mentioned, it was only the tab that crashed, it wasn't Firefox that crashed. I don't recall there being a button to submit a crash report, only to reload the tab, which I did. That was the point I remember telling me it had installed an update and I had to restart Firefox, when I had explicitly been telling it not to update.

I hadn't really intended to take this that much further at the time either. It was requested in Reddit I repost it here, I was really only interested at the time if it was behavior others had seen, but I did so because I was asked to.

Thank you

I assume that you didn't get the option to submit a crash report since you wrote that you got tab crash (Gah. Your tab just crashed). Do you get tab crashes more often? You can disable updating in the background via the Settings page.

• Settings -> General -> Firefox Updates
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-options-preferences-and-settings

Correct, no crash report option that I remember. As to do I get them more often, as compared to what? I randomly get them once a while. Maybe once a month, but not so often it's bothered me a lot.

Thanks for the settings- I believe I had set all those things. The FF getting more and more like Chrome/Microsoft updates have been annoying me, and I thought I had all that stuff already set. All the more reason I was surprised at the update messages. Anyway, this time has annoyed me to the point I went out and found there's a reg key for it, and I have completely disabled FF updating itself now, as far as I can tell.

I am just going to undo the key once in a while so that I can update on my schedule, just like I've preferred. I was considering if I would need to set a Windows domain back up to control these things.

Thank you

You can disable updating in the background via the Settings page.

• Settings -> General -> Firefox Updates
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-options-preferences-and-settings

There are no options anywhere with regards to background updating. As far as I can tell, you have to go into the about:config to touch background config related items. There are only very basic update related settings in the preferences page now, and my experience was that was the crux of the problem.

I am now investigating using policies.json as a simpler way to disable this, however, Firefox doesn't seem to be recognizing the file, and I'm getting annoyed enough with it I will just put a registry entry in and be done with it, as that does seem to work.

Ugh, it's just happened again. I'm on 128.0 and I can't open a new tab because it's somehow background updated according to the message. I thought I had it disabled at the policy level. If I go to about:policies, DisableAppUpdate is true.

The settings menu literally says "Updates disabled by your organization" so I'd really like to know why, when I try opening a new tab, it's telling me I need to restart because a background update has started. I love Firefox but it's really becoming understandable why the share % is where it is these days. I'm about to give up on it too.

There are no crash reports in about:crashes. Apparently Firefox and me don't share the same understanding of what disabling updates is.

Hi pobox3 -- sorry that this is happening, it's very frustrating :(

I wonder if the Firefox background update process is at fault here. Looking in `about:preferences`, do you have "Update Firefox when it is not running?" enabled? If so, in `about:config`, could you look at the Gecko preference `app.update.background.previous.reasons` and tell me what the value is? That would help me know if background updates _could_ be the issue; then we could try to run down some logs.

Could you take another look in `about:preferences` and look at the Update History section? Is there an update listed there that looks like it happened in the correct time frame?

Alternately, is this Firefox used by different OS-level user accounts on your device? I'm wondering if it's possible that the policy is not being applied to all users, which is unusual but possible.

Thanks for helping us run down what's happening here!

Hi pobox3 -- sorry that this is happening, it's very frustrating :( I wonder if the Firefox background update process is at fault here. Looking in `about:preferences`, do you have "Update Firefox when it is not running?" enabled? If so, in `about:config`, could you look at the Gecko preference `app.update.background.previous.reasons` and tell me what the value is? That would help me know if background updates _could_ be the issue; then we could try to run down some logs.

Hi! Thanks for the follow up. In answer to your questions:

app.update.background.previous.reasons = ["app.update.auto=false","cannot usually check for updates due to policy, testing configuration, or runtime environment","on Windows but cannot usually use BITS"]

I missed your other question. With regards to "Update Firefox when it is not running?", I can't see that option at all. If I search for "Update" in the options, that doesn't come up- if it is there, I think it is being masked by the "Browser is being managed by your organization" setting. So if it is on/enabled in spite of that, I can't tell. I'll can undo my settings later and check, I'm curious to see if 128.0.3 imposes itself on me, since it just came out recently.

Could you take another look in `about:preferences` and look at the Update History section? Is there an update listed there that looks like it happened in the correct time frame?

So that's interesting...it clearly says I am on 128.0.2. Update history is only showing that it's updated through 127.0, which is says it did on June 14, I can't speak with precision but that seems like a reasonably timeframe it could have done it. It does not show anything with 128 version, but it's done at least 2 updates since then.

Alternately, is this Firefox used by different OS-level user accounts on your device? I'm wondering if it's possible that the policy is not being applied to all users, which is unusual but possible. Thanks for helping us run down what's happening here!

No, I am the only user. I have the update policy set by reg key and JSON. There are no other accounts (only Zuul).

Thanks!

Problem still exists.

I'm on 132.0 and again super angry because I can't open a new tab, because I assume I'm being force updated to 132.1. I had thought it had gone away, but then I remembered I had blocked mozilla download servers for a long time, and recently had to unblock them to grab Thunderbird.

So the only way I can keep this infurating auto update from happening is blocking Mozilla so far. I am starting to wonder if it's something in the profile though- 132 came with a regression for me, where smooth scrolling ignores the setting in the UI. I did some searching and apparently this happens only with existing profiles, but a new profile doesn't do it. Maybe it's something similar for the updater. Anyway off to block Mozilla download servers again.

One interesting thing I just noticed... I checked my update history, and it doesn't think an update has been installed since 127.0, which I believe was around the time I started trying to disable auto updates. I actually somewhat noticed this a while back apparently, as I mention it in one of my earlier posts. But now it's been many many updates so it's quite clear the update history is no longer being maintained.