Get rid of the "Restart Required" in Firefox

[istrasci]

Please do not block my browsing session just to force me to restart!  Let me restart when I want to.  For security reasons, I'm almost always browsing in Private Mode, and as such, logins and passwords are not saved.  So when I'm forced to restart because of an update, I have to save my current tab session, reopen them after FF has restarted, and re-login to every site I was using—many of which require 2FA, so it's extra annoying.

This is bad UX!  Put a notification, or even a whole separate tab telling me I need to restart.  But don't block out everything I was doing.  Even Windows doesn't do this...

[sabresong]

The forced restarts while I'm working have collectively cost me hours of wasted time, especially when those forced restarts log me out of everything. I've been a Firefox user since it first came out, used Netscape before that. But these forced restarts are becoming a serious problem, losing me hours of research time, which cuts my productivity.

Simply put, if these forced restarts continue I will be forced to find another browser, and stop recommending Firefox, because it interferes with important work.

[Bryan]

Again lost a ton of work because Firefox forced a restart. Our Microsoft support team ensures me there's no app maintenance for Firefox, so Intune doesn't push new updates in the background. 

I've disabled every maintanance service and option. Even disabled it via regedit and added aus5.mozilla.org to the hosts file. Also deleted any relevant task in task scheduler. 

Every time I'm a step closer to moving to another browser and that thought hurts me as I've been a firefox user for more than 20 years. Help. Please help. 

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

As far as I'm concerned, my strategy is to use Firefox policies https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates
DisableAppUpdate https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#disableappupdate

By way of illustration
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1509058#answer-1729483

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z9NpPzsURWI
Clarification: at one point in my video, a black screen appears, and this is normal, it's my strategy, the time it takes to answer Yes in the "User Account Control" (UAC) dialog box.

[KenL]

I have been pursuing this issue via other avenues, and I have found that if you are on a computer managed by an RMM (ie a company computer with enforced update policies), the RMM can and will push through an update regardless of the policies you have set locally or in Firefox itself. That is not in itself a problem.

What is a problem is that Firefox allows an external process to trigger its update mechanism in a way that effectively crashes Firefox itself. Under normal circumstances, if you update from within Firefox itself, it will just ask you to restart soon. When the update mechanism is triggered by an external process, it effectively pulls the carpet out from under the main process, and the end user ends up with a "You must restart Firefox to continue", sometimes preceded by a "Gah, your tab has crashed".

It seems to me that the solution would be to either prevent any process other than Firefox itself from triggering the update process, or to make the update process work in such a way that isn't disruptive to the end user. By all means, nag me to restart, but don't force it.

[dgw]

In 2022, I see that an employee said (at the time) that this was most likely due to multiple profiles running at the same time.

We are now in 2026, and Mozilla has been working on a new Profiles system that still has this problem. Now, I love the new profiles (and also really wish I could use them on Android), but auto-updates still regularly disrupt my day. As an example, based on what just happened to me (atop Windows 11):

• User runs their Personal profile for a few days (long weekend, etc.)
• User opens their Work profile without quitting the Personal one, since profiles are exactly the sort of separation one needs between personal and professional identities (different linked Mozilla accounts, no shared history, no shared password manager, and so on)
• The Personal profile now demands to be restarted because opening a different profile triggered auto-update.

I have, of course, had this happen in both directions.

My workaround for now will be making Firefox "Check for updates but let you choose to install them", because it's less disruptive than having an entire profile suddenly stop working and require a restart.

In the long term, I think Firefox really needs to check if other instances are running before starting an auto-update, even if updates are set to be completely automatic (the default and recommended setting). The "When Firefox is not running" checkbox under the automatic setting sounds like it should make auto-updates only run when the browser's closed, but it doesn't. At least, not if you use multiple profiles.

Coming (back) to Firefox from Google Chrome, I got used to a small, colored indicator telling me there's an update available and I should restart the browser when I'm finished for the day/session so it can be updated for next time. Eventually there would be an explicit prompt to update after some egregiously long time without restarting (days), but 99% of the time it was completely unobtrusive, required no active thought, and did not interfere with actually using the browser for work or play.

I understand that Chrome is architecturally different (all of its "profiles" run in the same instance) and that might have motivated its gentler approach to automatic updates while the browser is running, but to me it's still prior art that Mozilla can copy to make Firefox's user experience better.

[dgw]

(I wrote something longer but Connect seems to have eaten it. If it reappears later, sorry for the double post…)

@KenL hit on exactly what I'm thinking after the last few times this has happened to me. Make the update process non-disruptive.

My instance is now set to let me choose to install updates, which should get rid of the forced-restart problem at the expense of actually having to think about them. It would still be preferable if auto-updates (on Windows, at least; don't think this would be doable with Linux packages) could defer themselves until all instances of Firefox have been closed, or otherwise coordinate between multiple open profiles to update when it will not interfere with the user's work.

That means don't install a pending auto-update on startup of a profile if any other profile is already open.