Chances are if you’re reading this guide, then you’re experiencing a pretty annoying bug with your raspberry pi os: the Chromium Can’t Update message.
Don’t worry – This simple 1-line fix below will help.
I’ve used this same command on 4 raspberry pi “dashboards” around the office, so I can assure you this works. If you are using your rpi as a dashboard to display a webpage, then obviously this popup message is very disruptive and ruins the overall experience.
Wondering how to stop the annoying Chromium Can’t Update popup message on your raspberry pi? Keep reading to find out how.
How does this fix work?
Basically, there is a bug with Chromium 78 that automatically prompts to check for an update every two hours, even if you are fully up-to-date.
According to some forum posts, this has been an ongoing issue for the last 8 months and the Chromium developers have stated that a fix for this is not a very high priority at this time. So, we’re taking it upon ourselves to fix it!
This fix changes the default prompting behavior from every 2 hours to 365 days.
Troubleshooting “Can’t Update Chromium” Message on Chromium 78
No matter what you do, this message pops up every two hours. You can try reinstalling Chromium with the latest version, updating from the Chromium settings, or trying various “fixes” from this 3-page long thread: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=264399&sid=56ebc422b67afcc8c503f5f31558c8e3&start=25
To save you from sifting through that thread, just enter the code snippet below into a terminal.
Step by Step Guide
- Log Into Your Raspberry Pi (either with SSH, webmin, or RealVNC)
- Open a terminal
- Copy & paste this code:
sudo touch /etc/chromium-browser/customizations/01-disable-update-check;echo CHROMIUM_FLAGS=\"\$\{CHROMIUM_FLAGS\} --check-for-update-interval=31536000\" | sudo tee /etc/chromium-browser/customizations/01-disable-update-check You should see the popup immediately disappear. No need to reboot your raspberry pi, either.
That’s it! This will disable the chromium update message for the next year.
If you’d like to setup a raspberry pi as a dashboard, there’s a few things you need to do so I’m including links to those below:
