Unable to update firefox

Question

Level 1

38 points

Unable to update firefox

There may be more than one issue going on, but I am not able to update to Firefox 41.0.2 on my Macbook Air (running El Capitan 10.11.1). I get the message:

"Unable to Update
"A recommended security and stability update is available but you do not have the system permissions required to install it. Please contact your system administrator or try again from an account that has permission to install software on this computer."

This is a new Macbook Air and I am the only user with admin privileges.

I am not sure that the Keychain was completed migrated from my old Macbook though.

What should I start with?

Thank you!

OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Nov 1, 2015 11:33 PM

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Answer 1

defecta

Level 1

16 points

Mar 6, 2017 7:28 PM in response to arneessa

I had the same symptoms on macOS Sierra but @arneessa's solution didn't work for me unfortunately. 😟

admin only had read permissions but changing to read/write didn't help. I still couldn't install automatic updates.

The search for a fix continues...

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Answer 2

arneessa

Level 1

16 points

Mar 5, 2016 4:16 AM in response to Fred360

I have experienced this fault too.
It appears that the administrator of Firefox.app (in finder-> Applications) only have "READ" rights, (should have READ & WRITE).
i solved it like this:
go into FINDER -> APPLICATIONS,
right click on FIREFOX.APP
select GET INFO
go down to the lower right corner of the INFO frame,
click on the PADLOCK icon
log in with your admin password.
click on the "Read only," and select READ & WRITE.
and then you can close the padlock again and it should solve the problem.
HOUSEKEEPING:
in my cases there is one entry permanently displaying "Fetching" I clicked on it (turned it blue) (with padlock open) and then deleted it by pressing the minus button in the lower left side of the info frame. locked the padlock
(Arne Essa Madsen)

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Answer 3

Jul 23, 2017 5:08 PM in response to defecta

Why would the admin account start off with real-only permissions beats me. Changing it to read/write did not solve the problem for me either! 😟

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Jul 23, 2017 5:40 PM in response to callistusl

Try updating in another admin account.

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