Why does my preferred search engine gets hide set to True in search.json after every update to Firefox?
I use DuckDuckGo as my preferred search engine. Everytime Firefox gets updated it dissappears from the drop down menu of search engines. I found in search.json that the Hide value would be set to True. By changing it to False and restarting Firefox DuckDuckGo would be back, until the next update. Why is this happening? It is an extension available from the Mozilla/Firefox extension/addons site.
All Replies (11)
First of all, thank you for providing troubleshooting info (Troubleshooter addon), have you tried the searchreset tool.
Thanks for the link. Just installed it, see what happens on next update. Hopefully no more unpleasant surprises.
Did you install the addon (after it runs once it removes its self, it should work after a firefox restart).
Yes, already installed it. about:config shows the entries when searching for searchreset.backup. The problem only happened after FF was updated by fedora, otherwise no problems occurred. So I don't think I'll see any results until the next update other than what they tell you to search for.
I don't think the regular update changes your personal search plugins -- the ones stored in your profile folder -- at all. It can change the default plugins in the Firefox program folder, such as when Firefox switch from HTTP to HTTPS for Google.
Can you confirm that you have DuckDuckGo in your Firefox profile searchplugins folder rather than the one in Firefox's program folder? I'm not sure exactly where these locations are on Linux, but to access your Firefox profile you can use:
Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Open Directory" button
(Windows: "Show Folder" button, Mac: "Show in Finder" button)
If you then open the searchplugins directory, you should find "duckduckgo.xml" there. If instead you find it in the Firefox program folder, that could be the problem.
Just compared this system with another system that seems to not have this problem, both are Fedora 19, and both have the same updates applied. Both systems have essentially the same sub-dir structure for the mozilla/firefox profile and in /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/searchplugins is the only place where all of the search xml files are. So I don't know what else to look at. Is there a way to tell what extension a file that just has a number for the xpi file name? They are obviously binaries as cat just spools out non ascii text.
Never mind, just answered my own question, I wasn't paying attention to the field that actually listed the file name for the extension listed in the left field.
Search engines that you install yourself are located in the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.
The default search engines that come with Firefox are located in the Firefox installation folder.
You seem to be having a 64 bit Firefox version from the repositories of your Linux distribution and in such a case things can behave differently.
My other system is also a Fedora 19 system and the xml file for the search engines are all in /usr/lib64/firefox/browser/searchplugins including the one for duckduckgo and I don't seem to be experiencing the problem there. I've already compared contents of sub-dirs between the 2 systems and they both are the same. Now file contents maybe different, but I'm not sure what other files would impact ff in this area besides search.json, which I wind up manually editing the setting for that search engine from true to false, restart ff and all is well.
It is best not to edit files, but to delete the file and let Firefox create a new file.
Also check the permissions to make sure that Firefox has proper red/write permissions.
I'll have to remember to do that the next time it updates. As far as permissions go, They haven't been changed since before I noticed when this all started.