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On two macs, both 10.9.4, I updated to Firefox 31.0.

In 'About Firefox' I now have a message 'firefox being updated by another instance'

This error is found on Mozilla support assoicated with v29 and one or two extensions, not noscript.

I am only running two extensions, noscript (2.6.8.36) and cookie culler (1.4). I suspected cookie culler since it is no longer maintained, disabled it and restarted to get the same message. I then restarted firefox in safe mode to get the normal message 'firefox is up to date'.

I could not find information on this error in this forum.

So, if anyone has a suggestion or comment, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Make sure you have a clean install of Firefox: Quit Firefox with Cmd-Q, check Activity Monitor to make sure there are no stray running Fx instances, then delete Firefox.app and all related system files (file will either contain either "firefox" or "org.mozilla.firefox" in its name, or be in a folder with such a name). Then reinstall Firefox 31 from here. If that doesn't solve it, your profile may be corrupt. Try creating a clean profile, leaving all the defaults. If the issue is gone there, try reinstalling all your extensions. If the issue is still gone, completely shut down Firefox, copy only the files containing data you care about from your old profile to your new profile.

If the issue still persists in a clean profile created *after* trying reinstall Fx, try using a different major Gecko version (I'd suggest either 30.0, 32.0b, or 24ESR - all are available from the same site as the reinstall link I posted).

Please let us know the results, thanks.

Thanks for the reply.
Wow. That is a bit more than I was expecting.
I have checked that there are no spurious instances of firefox running either when using it, after quiting, or after reboot and before opening it. The error is persistent.
But, only for this user account. The other user accounts on this mac do not exhibit the error showing 31.0, firefox up to date.
So, I will work through your suggestions and let the forum know.
Thanks, again.

> In 'About Firefox' I now have a message 'firefox being updated by another instance'

Regardless of the About box, you are running FF31 in all cases, is that correct?

Conceivable (possible, likely) that updates initiated under more then one user account & one finished & another is in limbo.

Perhaps something like that is the cause of what you are seeing.

In the user account with the problem, delete (or rename) the /updates/0/ directory tree & see if the issue subsides.

KB: Software Update

Yes. I am running ff 31 on both systems.

Although I have some different user accounts to segregate some work, I start and finish all updates from the primary account on each system.

I deleted the updates tree and .xml files, no change. I also downloaded ff31 and installed it 'on top' of the existing installation as suggested in a mozilla support posting, no change.

I have not blown away my profile or the firefox installation yet since I have not noticed any downside to the situation yet. Maybe this weekend....

thanks.