The firefox search bar will not function and when attempting to manage the search engines firefox freezes and I have to force quit.
My search bar does not work. I can enter text and the autofill works but when I hit enter or click the magnifying glass, nothing happens. (The location bar is working). I can change the search engine from google to other default engines but they don't search either. When I open "Manage Search Engines" the menu opens and I can make changes but then it won't leave and I have to force quit firefox to get back to normal browsing. This is driving me crazy, please help! I've tried restarting the search engine, my computer, modified settings as suggested by other pages, but nothing helps. (Safari's search bar is working, but I don't like using Safari so I'd really like to figure out how to fix this).
This happened
Every time Firefox opened
== Two weeks ago.
Chosen solution
I had this exact same problem. Haven't been able to Google from the search bar in weeks. Drove me mad.
Did what you suggested and made a new profile, but just copied over one file or folder at a time to the new profile in Finder and started up the Trial profile to see if it worked or not for Google.
It came down to formhistory.sqlite. The second I put that in Trial, the Google bar stopped working. Found out it just saves your form history and past Google searches, so I'm ok with starting over on that. I'll just have to enter my address one more time on the next form I fill out.
I tried just clearing the Form and Search history from within Firefox, but that didn't solve it, so I went ahead and made another new profile and replaced the formhistory.sqlite file from that profile into my Trial. It worked, so I did the same with "default".
Problem. Solved.
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If you start in Firefox Safe Mode, does the problem still occur? See Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode
Yep same problems still occur ... any other thoughts?
-M.A.
If you create a test Firefox profile, does the problem occur in the test profile? See Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles
I set up a test profile and the search bar does work in that and the various other issues are fine as well. Does that mean I should just use this new profile? Or is there a way to fix my default profile (to which all my passwords/favorites/site preferences etc. are saved)?
-M.A
Use the info in the Recovering important data from an old profile article to migrate your important data, and if the problem occurs in the new profile, remember which file you copied over, that caused the problem to re-occur.
Chosen Solution
I had this exact same problem. Haven't been able to Google from the search bar in weeks. Drove me mad.
Did what you suggested and made a new profile, but just copied over one file or folder at a time to the new profile in Finder and started up the Trial profile to see if it worked or not for Google.
It came down to formhistory.sqlite. The second I put that in Trial, the Google bar stopped working. Found out it just saves your form history and past Google searches, so I'm ok with starting over on that. I'll just have to enter my address one more time on the next form I fill out.
I tried just clearing the Form and Search history from within Firefox, but that didn't solve it, so I went ahead and made another new profile and replaced the formhistory.sqlite file from that profile into my Trial. It worked, so I did the same with "default".
Problem. Solved.
I deleted the formhistory.sqlite file, restarted Firefox and it works again.