Why can’t the devs have it update in the background or on next startup? I was in the middle of my work when I got this. Now I need to close everything and go through all the logins and 2FA again. 😡
Chrome is much better at this, hands down. It has never interrupted me the way Firefox does during updates.
That’s a Linux (and similar) issue. When Linux updates via it’s package managers it will update Firefox in the background even though it’s open. Firefox then forces you to close it rather than open other tabs to prevent problems.
But you don’t have to install Firefox via the package managers or flathub. You can build it yourself or install a binary manually and I believe it well self update as it does on other platforms. I haven’t done it for a while though.
Otherwise manually control Linux updates so it doesn’t mess with Firefox when you’re in the middle of something important.
Edit: the exception on Windows would be if some other software is handling firefox’s updates or there is a group policy / system management of Firefox. I’ve never had this issue on windows on my own PCs
Edit: btw I have had worse happen on windows with chrome on a work pc. An update was forced on my and chrome close itself without warning and reopened with the update. Pissed me off no end.
In 4 or 5 years on Ubuntu I have no memory of ever seeing it.
My complaint is the roulette of sometimes being unable to reopen my last session after restarting my computer. I’d say once every 10 restarts, the “reload last session” button is grayed out and I lose all my open tabs.
You could try pinning tabs you want to keep before restarting. I do the same if I really want to be sure. Pinned tabs generally survive restarts, even during updates.
That’s fantastic, I had no idea that I could pin tabs in Firefox, thanks so much!
If that happens, you should recover from a snapshot… I never experienced this unless the profile folder was damaged or lost.
I had this exact scenario (asking me to restart after an update) happen to me yesterday on pop os which is Ubuntu based. And I’ve definitely seen it other times too. Having said that, it was absolutely no big deal whatsoever.
I don’t remember seeing the other issue you mention. I’ve literally had some tabs open several months. Have you tried looking for the “restore tabs” option in the History menu when this happens? Afaik that’s available even if you don’t have any option set to save your tabs
If you are okay with trusting an extension, I use Tab Session Manager, it takes snapshots of all your open windows and tabs, and it can restore them when, for example, you forget to restore the previous session before closing Firefox, and overwrite the previous session of dozens of tabs, with the current session that you don’t care about.
I usually just rely on the built-in restore, but having the backup just in case is such a relief to have on those occasions when “reload last session” is grayed out.
Awesome! Thanks so much, this sounds exactly like what I need. I really appreciate you letting me know about this.
via its* package manager.
This is fundamentally wrong. If you are using Firefox on Linux, you would not update at a time when you’re working - because you KNOW that you have to restart it.
It is considered a ‘User Error’ if they update their system and then complain later that they’re unhappy that they suddenly need to restart something.