29 September 2011, 16:13

Developers pause automatic Firefox updates - Update

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In a post on the Mozilla Add-ons Blog, developer Justin Scott says that a number of users are experiencing problems with add-ons after upgrading to version 7 of Firefox, which was released earlier this week. While the extensions and their data are still there, they are no longer visible; the flaw was first reported on 21 August in a beta of version 7.

As the issue affects many users, the developers have "paused new updates to Firefox" for the time being. Automatic updates will be reinstated when an update to fix the bug, version 7.0.1, is made available. For users who have already upgraded to Firefox 7, a workaround is provided. The problem apparently occurs when an Add-on is downloaded but has not yet been installed by rebooting the browser. A comment on the blog post indicates that version 7 of Thunderbird may also be affected.

Mozilla switched to a rapid release schedule for Firefox with version 4 of the browser. However, having a new release every six weeks has met with some consternation and criticism, especially amongst enterprise users.

Update: Mozilla has now released an update, version 7.0.1, to Firefox to address the add-ons issue and has re-enabled automatic update notifications. All users are advised to update to the latest version.

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