I believe that only happens when a Linux package manager updates Firefox while it's running.

How can this happen when Linux package managers don't auto-update (without help)? I mean if you don't want Firefox updated while you are using it you just just don't update it. If your distro has some sort of auto-update by default (do any do this?, I thought available update notifications was the standard) then disable it and get control of that back. Auto-updating packages is an anti-pattern (ie. bad).

It can also happen if you have two copies of 'stock' Firefox running (with different profiles) and one of them runs the update.

Probably. Never seen anything like that on Windows or macOS.

I get 'Firefox needs to restart' all the time on MacOS.

Right, but it doesn't auto-update and kill your session.

Yeah it does. It might be possible to disable it though but as far as I'm aware it's enabled by default.

No, it prompts first.

It is a preference you can set.

It is a preference. I’m not sure what the default is, but the recommended is to have it done without prompting.

Happens on Mac all the time.

… Firefox on my work macOS is presently has an emblem on the hamburger menu, and if you open the menu: "Update available — restart now". I've been delaying for days? weeks? at this point.

Clicking it causes the browser to disappear for ~20 seconds, +10s for the UI to become available.

Happens on Windows

Never once in my experience, and I haven't configured it otherwise.

Whenever firefox on Windows at work starts to act flaky (won't let me open a new tab, stutters, locks up for a while) it's probably going to update when I close it down in frustration and open it again.

I have (macOS).

… it doesn't, and I've just run `pacman -S` to check. (& it didn't.)

(It does cause some tabs to message that a browser restart is required. Even so … this is really the first I hit this, as I'm usually doing updates when it is opportunistic to do so, such as right before a reboot (so any kernel updates happen).)

This could well be an issue with 'snap', see earlier thread on the subject.

Nope, on ubuntu you get a popup while you are browsing the net saying that SNAP UPDATES ARE POSTPONED because you started something that is entombed in a snap...

Then it does this every time you boot your os and start the browser first.

Maybe, next time, before you start your browser it should update the snaps, then let you use the browser. NOOOOOOOO WAAAY! Display the popup for 2 weeks... or before you commit self harm you do the update yourself.

And we are going to Mars!

I've never had this happen on Windows or macOS. In Linux, I have had Firefox complain when my package manager updates Firefox while it is running, which I think is perfectly normal.

What an odd thing to randomly complain about, and completely off-topic in regards to the article.

Agreed. I often update (in Fedora) which causes Firefox to be restarted - never had any issues clicking the 'restart Firefox' button though which relaunches it and opens the last session, often opening dozens of older tabs without issue. Bizarre thing to complain about.

I'm not the parent poster, but this happens to me as well. It's new and didn't happen about a year ago or before that.

To everyone saying this is Snap: I'm using Debian. It does not have snap.

To everyone saying this is apt: no, I also do not apt upgrade and then wonder why tab processes suddenly can't talk to the master process anymore. Unattended upgrades is not installed on this system (it's not a server and I do manual upgrades regularly, it's not as though that unexpectedly reports that there aren't any to be applied).

It happens both on systems where firefox-esr is installed via apt and where Firefox is installed directly from Mozilla without going through apt (stability vs. timely features).

I do remember that this indeed happens when I once did upgrade via apt and then continued using Firefox. Similar effect with e.g. Signal.