Beta channel switched automatically to release?

[muhahaa]

My Fx installation was supposed to be on the beta channel, but after an autoupdate it was switched to the release channel. The Chrome beta doesn't do this.

Built from http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla- ... 56ff900c2a
--enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-update-packaging --enable-jemalloc --enable-tests --enable-official-branding

Does this mean that I have to download the exe installer when the next beta is released?

Edit: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=665337

[bjherbison]

No matter what the build is called, Firefox 5 is still in the beta channel. Mozilla just thinks (hopes) that the current Firefox 5 will become the release version in a couple of days.

If everything works as I expect, you should be getting a Firefox 6 beta build soon after 5 July.

(Edit: updated the date above. We are still transitioning to the rapid release cycle, with Firefox 5 being on a different schedule from future releases so there is a two week gap between the end of Firefox 5 beta and the start of Firefox 6 beta.)

[michaell522]

My Fx installation was supposed to be on the beta channel, but after an autoupdate it was switched to the release channel. The Chrome beta doesn't do this.

Built from http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla- ... 56ff900c2a
--enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-update-packaging --enable-jemalloc --enable-tests --enable-official-branding

Are you sure it has switched to the release channel? If you go to about:config, what is the "app.update.channel" pref set to?

Might seem a little odd, but I think what they've done is put the release candidate build (which is from the release "channel" in hg) out on the beta channel, and when the first beta build for Firefox 6 is available, we will get updated to that.

The alternative would be leaving beta channel people on Firefox 5 beta 7 until Firefox 6 beta 1 is available, and then nobody would get the release candidate builds automatically. That would also seem odd...

[HN_FIN]

I tried to reproduce that bug by installing 5.07 and then letting it to automatically update into the release candidate build (which is currently offered at the beta channel), but the channel setting in about:config stayed properly as "beta" even after that. So, I expect that the next update for it will be in July, when there will be a new beta 6.0b1.

[muhahaa]

Is the channel in about:buildconfig obsolete now?

[michaell522]

Is the channel in about:buildconfig obsolete now?

Not really, but it just indicates the channel that the installer would put you on with a new installation, which does not have to match the channel you got the build from (this was the case with 4.0 betas and release candidates too).

As Gavin Sharp said in the bug, the updater does not change the channel you are on. So, if someone downloaded and installed this release candidate build, they would be put on the release channel. For people that installed a beta build, that installation would put them on the beta channel, and the process of updating to this release candidate does not change that.