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...

[Brycey92]

This "feature" is extremely annoying, often causing me lost work, and it treats Firefox users with no respect. I'm not a child. I understand the risks of delaying browser updates by a few minutes to a few days, and should be allowed to make my own decisions.

[WizKI]

Honestly, I do not like to be forced to do smth. I take my responsibility while using a tool. The web browser is a kind of this tool. Let us to use it as we want. Do not besome the second MS, please.

[avoss]

Just want to add my voice here. Forcing users to restart at arbitrary times is really poor UX. Unlike what some people have said, this is not a problem just with snap but happens at least on MacOS as well. I can understand that there are some security considerations here but at least a button to postpone the update would be good. Even Apple does not force updates on you that hard.

People can be in a rush or occupied for all sorts of reasons. Imagine I am trying to find the way to the closest emergency room while this happens. Also very annoying during calls. I don't even have a 2nd browser available on my Linux box, so no workaround. Losing open private mode windows is an additional issue.

This is a fundamentally flawed design decision that needs to be remedied. Love and kisses from someone who loves Firefox and happens to think it does not need to be the fastest browser in the world as long as it does what it does right! I changes my update setting and will continue using your browser but please fix this for everyone, incl. users who do not like to dig into their settings.

[botulf]

I am disappointed that Mozilla doesn't listen. I have been a serious user and promoter for Mozilla since the last Netscape and the first firebird.

Guess its now grown over the level of users. Controlled by commercial companies probably.

Guess chromium is next sadly.

[Ipsrich]

I'm curious as to why nothing is being done to address this issue (or, at least, no assurance is being posted here that it is being addressed).  It's clearly massively annoying and inconveniencing lots of people - myself included, both today and yesterday on two separate machines.  I love Firefox but I really hate this aspect.  Please trust that I'm not an idiot and can be trusted to restart my browser when I'm ready.  Feel free to remind me on every new tab!

[Vision7982]

I keep a lot of tabs open in multiple windows, and when Firefox update requires an update in the middle of a (non-private) session, it can take several minutes to come back.  Often I am trying to open a new page, and that process is lost.  Other times, a stock trade is delayed, which can translate into lost $.

Please don't block use of the browser whenever an update downloads.

[nickyp123]

Pretty unbelievable they are still doing this given the activity on this thread. Very disappointing, I can either use this bad product or give up and join the chrome world >.<

[VictorLaszlo]

100% agree. This is MONUMENTALLY ANNOYING.

[VictorLaszlo]

My version of FireFox (120.0) has no changable option under "Updates". There is only a "What's New" link.

[avoss]

@VictorLaszlo- the choice is a little bit further down in the grey area (at least on a Mac). Look for "Check for updates but let you choose to install them". That will get Firefox to alert you when updates are available but you get to choose when to install and restart. As long as you don't ignore this, that should work fine.

[fmkguy]

@avoss If this is what you're talking about:

I have that setting enabled and was still forced to restart a few days ago.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Information page to help https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-troubleshooting-information-page-fix-firefox
Update Folder: Shows the path to the folder containing the files update-config.json, updates.xml, active-update.xml (if an update was downloaded but not yet applied) and the updates subfolder. Clicking on Open Folder will take you to the update folder

Among other things, you will find the update-config.json file
app.update.auto
app.update.background.enabled
This is related to the user choice https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-options-preferences-and-settings#w_general-panel
Firefox Updates This is where you can check your update history or change update settings for Firefox

About app.update.background.enabled
Enable background updates on Firefox for Windows when Firefox is not running https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-background-updates-firefox-windows

If you're experimenting, take a look at the
Mozilla in the Windows Task Scheduler library
The background update task checks for Firefox updates when Firefox is not running. This task is installed automatically by Firefox and is reinstalled when Firefox runs. To disable this task, update your browser settings or the Firefox corporate policy setting "BackgroundAppUpdate"

BackgroundAppUpdate https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#backgroundappupdate
If you have disabled updates via DisableAppUpdate or disabled automatic updates via AppAutoUpdate, this policy has no effect

Firefox release notes https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/releases
From https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/63.0/releasenotes
The option to Never check for updates was removed from about:preferences. You can use the DisableAppUpdate enterprise policy as a substitute

https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#disableappupdate

{
  "policies": {
    "DisableAppUpdate": true
  }
}

Copy/paste the code (example) into Notepad
Save
Type: All files
policies.json

Create distribution folder
Move policies.json to distribution folder
Move the distribution folder to the folder containing firefox.exe [the program installation folder].
Stop Firefox start Firefox

For illustration purposes
Option 1: Disable Updates using Enterprise Policy JSON
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiWZOm_UX30

[svendecabooter]

+1 this is extremely annoying.

I love Firefox, but this behavior has resulted in data loss numerous times already.

Today I was filling in a complicated multistep form which uses AJAX to refresh options. However this did not work anymore suddenly. Thinking there must be something wrong with the site or my internet connection, I open a new tab to check connection to another site, and then the "Restart Firefox" message appears, forcing me to do so, and losing all the data from the form I was filling in...

Can you at least add an option to postpone this update for like 15 minutes or so?? I'd like to finish the job I was doing, and then will happily restart Firefox a bit later to get an up-to-date secure system. But at least give me a few minutes to finish what I was doing!!

[Tad_SPACE_Naff]

So on Linux at least, I found the file /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/omni.ja. It's a partially binary file (a "Mozilla archive" according to file-extensions.org). There is another omni.ja in the parent directory that isn't relevant, just a heads-up. For Windows or Mac there should be something similar but I haven't got either of those, so someone else might chime in with the file location.

In my copy (FF 121.01) I see:

root@lakshmi:/usr/lib64/firefox/browser# grep -naF -C2 'browser.currentURI;' omni.ja
63485-
63486-  sendToRestartRequiredPage(browser) {
63487:    let uri = browser.currentURI;
63488-    let gBrowser = browser.getTabBrowser();
63489-    let tab = gBrowser.getTabForBrowser(browser);
--
... more output ...

Since the file is partially binary, normal editing tools will likely break it. But you can use e.g. hexedit, or if you're brave this will work at time of writing:

sed -i.bk -e '0,/let uri = browser\.currentURI;/{s~let uri =~return;//~}' omni.ja

What this does is find the first occurrence of let uri = browser.currentURI; in omni.ja and then replace let uri = with return;//. For safety, it will also make a backup of the original file as omni.ja.bk. Note that the replacement has the same number of characters (9) as the target; this can matter with binary files.

The result is:

root@lakshmi:/usr/lib64/firefox/browser# grep -naF -C2 'return;//' omni.ja
63485-
63486-  sendToRestartRequiredPage(browser) {
63487:    return;// browser.currentURI;
63488-    let gBrowser = browser.getTabBrowser();
63489-    let tab = gBrowser.getTabForBrowser(browser);

So when FF decides that a forced restart is mandatory, it will happily go through all the preliminaries and then end up at the function sendToRestartRequiredPage, which will now simply return (i.e. do nothing) rather than hijack the tab.

This is of course not a sanctioned course of action, so if you choose to try this, do it at your own risk. Make backups. If a background process updates FF, you may or may not end up with a crash. Also an updated FF will replace omni.ja, so you'll need to re-hack omni.ja after every update (or, possibly, you might be able to just save the hacked omni.ja file elsewhere and copy it over the new one. No guarantee that it will work across versions though). In short, one is making a trade-off between stability and usability, but for now I'll take the chance of a crash over the certainty of lost work.

I have no doubt that once the devs see this, they'll reorganize omni.ja (they seem to be disturbingly devoted to preserving this feature). For example they could move the function further down in the file so that the first hit on let uri = browser.currentURI; won't be the one we're after. In future releases one might need to just look for RestartRequired in the file to find the right line to edit.

PS, after submitiing: what's so bad about <code> tags, Moz?

[no_forced_updat]

Bump