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autocomplete URL not working

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  • Last reply by jMac

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Autocomplete of URLs used to work. I cleared my history, and it has quit working. For instance, if I had gone to amazon.com, exit and start entering the URL again, it would autocomplete.

This page says that it does that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox#w_url-autocomplete

But it has quit working for me and I can't find any option to turn it on. I've looked in preferences#search and in privacy, but I don't see anything to set it.

Is there a way to turn it back on? (I'm using version 75.0.)

Autocomplete of URLs used to work. I cleared my history, and it has quit working. For instance, if I had gone to amazon.com, exit and start entering the URL again, it would autocomplete. This page says that it does that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox#w_url-autocomplete But it has quit working for me and I can't find any option to turn it on. I've looked in preferences#search and in privacy, but I don't see anything to set it. Is there a way to turn it back on? (I'm using version 75.0.)

Chosen solution

You can check this urlbar pref on the about:config page.

  • browser.urlbar.autoFill = true

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

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All Replies (9)

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Seçilmiş Həll

You can check this urlbar pref on the about:config page.

  • browser.urlbar.autoFill = true

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

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Thanks for that suggestion. The option is set to true. To make sure it was set, I toggled it to false and back to true. It still doesn't autocomplete the URL the way it used to.

(Windows 10, build 1909, BTW)

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I had five extensions installed - I disabled them but it didn't fix the problem.

I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, clean, same problem.

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If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page

If errors are reported with "Verify Integrity", close and restart Firefox and retry.

If "Verify Integrity" cannot repair places.sqlite, rename/remove all places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

  • keep a backup copy of places.sqlite in case a new places.sqlite database has to be created

See also:

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

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I tried the Verify, it said: > Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 5120KiB + The database has been vacuumed ...

That didn't fix it. I went to about:profiles to delete the two files you said, but it says "This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted." Should I rename them? Close Firefox and delete the files?


Later: I created a new profile, same problem.

Modified by jMac

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For what it's worth, I tried an experiment in a new profile that had never visited Amazon.

(1)

I submitted amazon.com in the address bar. Firefox redirected and loaded https://www.amazon.com/

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. When I typed am in the URL bar, I did not get any autofill suggestion (a gave me a different site).

I used the drop-down to load https://www.amazon.com/

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. Now when I typed a in the URL bar, I got https://www.amazon.com/ as the autofill suggestion.

(2)

In the Library window (Ctrl+Shift+h), I used "Forget About This Site" to erase Firefox's memory of Amazon.

I submitted a search for amazon and clicked the result link to https://www.amazon.com/

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. When I typed am in the URL bar, I did not get any autofill suggestion (a gave me a different site).

I went back to the search results and repeated those steps. Still no suggestion.

I went back to Amazon and bookmarked it. I used an older bookmark to go to to a different page. Now when I typed a in the URL bar, I got https://www.amazon.com/ as the autofill suggestion.

I went to the Library (Ctrl+Shift+b) and deleted the Amazon bookmark.

Now when I typed am in the URL bar I got no suggestion.

(3)

In the Library window (Ctrl+Shift+h), I used "Forget About This Site" to erase Firefox's memory of Amazon.

I pasted the full URL https://www.amazon.com/ in the address bar and pressed Enter to load it.

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. When I typed a in the URL bar, I got https://www.amazon.com/ as the autofill suggestion..

Conclusion

Firefox seems requires particular actions before it will suggest a site in the address bar such as

  • Loading the final URL from history
  • Bookmarking the page
  • Typing the final URL in (or copy/pasting the final address to) the URL bar and submitting it there

Possibly other methods of accessing a site may trigger an autofill suggestion if repeated over time, but that is what I saw in this test.

It's possible this is different from older versions but since I disable this feature, I wouldn't know.

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That seems to be a different behavior from before. Version 75 was released 11 days ago - I wonder if something got messed up.

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Followup: my laptop running the same version and the same version of Windows does NOT have the problem.

I'm thinking I need to completely wipe Firefox and its files. When I was reinstalling, it said that it was keeping some files.


Later: I uninstalled Firefox (again), and deleted the folders the instructions said to delete, including one in %appdata%. I reinstalled it, and the problem still exists.

Modified by jMac

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Well, now it started working again!