Firefox is being updated by another instance
All the family use my PC with their own user accounts. Frequently Firefox goes slow and whenever I check 'About Firefox' I see 'Firefox is being updated by another instance'. This means that I have to log off all other users and then let my Firefox run an update check which, of course, normally just comes back with 'up to date'.
The problems are normally evidenced by Firefox just being very slow and/or only showing parts of the page and those parts changing as and when the page is scrolled.
This is a real problem with Firefox and makes it very unpopular with my family due to its unreliability.
Could not Firefox be set to only do an update check when it can actually complete the check and/or update.
Any advice appreciated.,
thanks,
Rob
All Replies (9)
Inside the FireFox options, you can control the updating by enable the setting to do a check for updates but not to download until you say so.
So my theory in this is that since you have multiple accounts that share the computer, they might not all be with the most up to date version of Firefox. In the options of Firefox you can change when Firefox completes an update, and most likely one of the accounts or all have them set to "Automatically install updates (recommended)" and when you see that Firefox is being updated by another instance it is the browser performing an update on another account in which case just let it be for a little to complete, or it may be that the browser is trying to check all of the accounts to see if they are up to date, in this case just mostly avoid hitting the 'about Firefox' button or if you do make sure all other accounts are logged out.
It's an interesting theory. But I am not sure if that is the case.
If you are the first to start Firefox and keep this instance running constantly then you shouldn't get this error, only if Firefox is already running then you get this error and the other instances need to be closed to make it possible to check for updates.
I am surprised that I seem to be the only person with this problem. No similar problem with Chrome or Edge but I would rather use Firefox but....
Cor-el, thanks for your suggestion but not all users on the PC can be first to start Firefox. Sometimes I have the problem and sometimes others. Either way it is a big pain.
Thomas, thanks for the theory. I think that Firefox is just the 1 installation on the PC and so all users have the same version.
·´¯`·...¸>-)))º> ~dbben, thanks but the problem arises even if there is no update. It is the check that seems to cause Firefox to go slow and refuse to download parts of webpages. If I go into all user accounts and close Firefox then on final account, update check completes and almost always is already up to date.
Don't understand how there are not loads of users with this problem as the problem just seems to be multiple user accounts on 1 PC.
If users or Mozilla have suggestions that would be great. Maybe they could just fix it
Yes, the update process is going to be changed this year. I'm sure it will be less annoying very soon.
This setting definitely should work:
Note: C:\ProgramData is a hidden folder. If you want to see its contents, you can set Windows to show hidden files and folders. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files-0320fe58-0117-fd59-6851-9b7f9840fdb2
Jscher2000, thanks for your suggestion (and to ·´¯`·...¸>-)))º> ~dbben before). I don't see why it should make a difference as it is checking for updates that causes the problem, rather than any update itself BUT I have changed the setting and will see what happens.
TyDraniu, That is great to hear and thanks for the response. Also good to hear it is a problem and not just my PC.
What changes on Windows might be that it will be possible that Firefox can update in the background, even when Firefox isn't running, using a special Background Update Agent that is currently being tested on Nightly (91).