Re: upgrading firefox-esr from 78.6 to 78.9 results in non-working firefox
On Sat 10 Apr 2021 at 12:59:12 (+0100), Eric S Fraga wrote:
>
> I don't frequently upgrade if my system (mostly Debian testing) is
> working but my bank told me that my browser was out of date and I needed
> to upgrade.
>
> So, I did 'apt update' and 'apt install firefox-esr' to upgrade from
> version 78.6 to version 78.9. Start up the new version and not a single
> site I tried worked. Just blank pages.
>
> Reverted to 78.6 and it works just fine (although the bank is not happy
> with me...).
>
> I've checked the Debian bugs list but did not see anything relevant
> (although there are so many bug reports that it's easy to miss one...).
>
> I don't have time to do much more investigating at the moment but
> thought I'd post this just in case anybody else has had the same
> behaviour. I'll hopefully investigate more in a few days.
My reaction upon reading this is that perhaps you should change your
priorities slightly.
The fact that the system "works" is a high bar for upgrading, and
takes no account of whether the system has vulnrabilities ripe
for exploit.
OTOH the bank's website may well be checking your version number
against the latest available from mozilla (87 AIUI), without
regard for any patching done by Debian.
FWIW all the sites that I normally visit are working with
78.9.0esr-1~deb10u1, the current version. (Note that writing
"version 78.9" doesn't tell us which version you're running—I see
a different one in bullseye: 78.9.0esr-1.)
Perhaps your problem lies with the mix of packages you have installed,
as you wrote "mostly Debian testing" above. But I would repeat
Linux-Fan's exhortation not to upgrade FF while an instance is
running, and also suggest testing the new version with a fresh
profile to avoid losing any information from your old profile.
Cheers,
David.
Reply to: