For some time now I’ve noticed that Firefox will never update on images I’ve created. I’ve always wondered why that is. Does anyone have similar issues?
The only thing I can think of is that I create a package (before-after snapshot) after Firefox is installed to capture the preferences to Users Template. Never actually touching the Firefox.app itself.
Any ideas why this occurs?
It is working fine for me.
As you say it may have something to do with the default profile you are using.
You could try to delete it from the English.lproj folder and create a new test user. Then try to update from that user account
Noel
Sorry should have been clearer. That package for Firefox preferences isn’t actually packaging up the Firefox.app. It only packages the preferences located in Library/Preferences (I think that’s the location, can’t check right now) which is copied to the English.lporj folder. These preferences contain the bookmarks and so on.
Do you copy prefs like this? If not, how do you go about it?
I did understand your point.
Same as I do you install a copy of the default Firefox preferences to [code]/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles[/code] and as a separate package you copy the .app bundle to [code]/Applications[/code]
It is easy to troubleshoot. Just delete the default profile executing [code]sudo rm -rfd /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox[/code] then create a new user, log in to that user and check.
If the error does not appear probably your preferences are corrupted
nbalonso
Thanks for the tip. I will try this out when I get a chance this week. Will let you know how it goes.
So I finally got around to testing this out. And I don’t believe it’s the preferences I’m packaging up or where I’m putting them.
I created a base OS image that has only third-party apps and a dock plist copied to User Templates.
And Firefox v11 won’t update to v12.
Open Firefox.app. Check in “About” for updates. It gives me a link to download it instead. I do so and quit Firefox.
But whenever I try to manually install (drag and drop) I get the message whether I want to “Replace” “Keep Both” or “Cancel”. I click Replace and get:
“The operation can’t be completed because some items had to be skipped. For each item, choose File > Get Info, make sure “Locked” is deselected, and then check the Sharing & Permissions section. When you are sure the items are unlocked and not designated as Ready Only or No Access, try again.”
So I do as it says and notice under Get Info -> Sharing Permissions that:
system has R&W
admin has Read Only
everyone has Ready Only
Looks pretty normal (unless someone says otherwise).
I check owner/group access for Applications and notice everything in Applications that comes with the OS by default is root:wheel except those third-party apps which are root:admin. Again, pretty normal, right?
So I try this with another app: Text Wrangler. Same thing exact thing happens as above. This time I was simply replacing TextWrangler v4 with v4 instead of upgrading.
I try something similar with VLC. Except this time I did not open VLC player which was originally added using InstaDMG. I simply replace the app (drag and drop) and it works without any problems.
Try the same thing again with VLC (re-imaged, so I could use the same VLC that was added using InstaDMG). This time I do open VLC and close it. And try to a drag and drop replacement. It works fine.
I wanted to rule out that opening the application and then closing it may have been causing some file to lock. That wasn’t the case at least for VLC. So I tried the same for Firefox and VLC: 1. open and close app and then replace it and 2. don’t open app and simply replace it. But I constantly get that message and can’t do a simple replacement of the app.
But once the apps are replaced (I have to delete the app first and then drag/drop from dmg installer), I can easily replace them thereafter. No problem.
I get the feeling that something is locking Firefox and TextWrangler, but I’m not sure what. I’m going to go back and re-create the image. This time in doing so I’m going to make sure that no apps are open during this process. Not that I think it should cause any problems, but just in case.
Could someone do me a favor in testing this out:
Using InstaUp2Date, make a simple Lion image with Firefox v11. Open Firefox. Click on “Firefox” menu and click on About. It should automatically start checking for updates.
Firefox v11 here: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-11.0&os=osx&lang=en-US
Could try the same with TextWrangler as well if you feel so inclined.
Are you getting problems updating? If you try to manually update, do you get the message above about some items being locked?
I went back and created a new image for Lion with only the Apple updates and Firefox and Text Wrangler.
I’m still experience trouble when I manually try to update both applications.I get that Replace dialog box and it won’t let me replace it because it says a file is locked.
I’m just not sure what I could be doing wrong here.
i get the same thing. Firefox won’t update from my image either. requires a manual download. with the frequency of updates and the inline PDF reading getting killed each time it they “fix” FF i’m nearly done with it…
The problem with replacing apps in the Finder is one that was common in Leopard if you were logged in to a standard account. It was fixed in Snow Leopard but reappeared/regressed in Lion. My guess is that items within the application bundle have different permissions than the bundle itself and that the OS trips up on those items.
You might want to consider the ESR series for Firefox (“Firefox for Organizations” or Extended Support Release), where you get the patches from the latest version but don’t have to deal with testing features every 6 weeks. Current release is 10.0.4esr (same patches as v.12). It might play better.