"Yes, it is MOST annoying & YES, I too almost switched to Chrome which I hate with a passion..."

I refuse to go to Chrome, more of the same, Google assuming it knows what's best for me. And when my cell contract is up in a year, I'm hoping there's another alternative to the little robot, I've had enough of that as well. I can dream can't I?

"...showing you just where Firefox is standing on my 'favorites' list right about now. I'm hanging in here but one more of these "you fix it, we can't be bothered" sessions & I'm out of here!"

Mozilla/FF used to be so user oriented, what happened? I don't want to believe they're going the same way as so many other entities, the user isn't important.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''”When I go back to Google search results page it takes me to a blank Google screen...”''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '

I’m horrified after reading the complicated and arcane responses to this (apparently) fairly universal problem.

I’m not a developer, a power user, a geek or an employee or creator of Firefox.

I am not comfortable when reading phrases contained in long-winded solutions that have phrases like “...this should restore *most* of your information...”

I am a general civilian user of Firefox and expect the folks who presented this version to me to fix what’s wrong or provide a detailed list of tested and workable steps that will fix it without creating hair-hurting twists and turns for non-techno users.

Why is that so hard?

When Can I expect an update that works happily with Google search?

---JP

Hi Joypebble, this is a support forum and since there is no known date for a fix, the best we can offer are workarounds. No one would like this fixed more than the volunteers who get to hear everyone's complaints in this and other threads. But we aren't programmers...

As you learned in reading through the earlier posts, this blanking out occurs when using a combination of three settings, which may be fairly common:

• Zoom level higher than 120% (the newest versions of Windows apparently default to 125%, which Firefox detects and adopts)

• Google search set to instant prediction results (default on Google search, but can be disabled in Search settings, see Google Instant Search Help)

• Opening results in the same tab, then using the Back button to return to the results page (default on Google search, but can be changed in Search settings to open results in a new window/tab, see Google Search Help)

Firefox's cache feature attempts to maximize speed for forward and back actions by storing the last rendering of the page. Something about the instant prediction results with zoom is causing Firefox to briefly display the results and then they blank out and you have to reload the page to get them back. The mystery is why this only occurs (so far as I have heard) on Google? Is one of Google's scripts blanking out the page? Does Google care that it's messing up Firefox users?

For now, if you do not want to or cannot change any one of the three factors needed to experience this problem, you can disable the storage of the last rendering of the page. Then Firefox will skip the shortcut and lay it out fresh, which is known to work. As noted in earlier posts, you make this change using the about:config preferences editor.

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste sess and pause while the list is filtered.

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers preference and change it to 0 (that's a zero).

I know that is not a satisfactory response, but hopefully it is at least clear.

jscher2000: I don't think many of us here are blaming the volunteers...they are left trying to appease angry, annoyed & frustrated users too, while looking for something from Firefox that obviously *isn't there*. Not fair to the volunteer, not fair to the user. Firefox needs to knuckle down & find a fix. Granted Google likely has a hand in this as well...not thrilled with them of late either. But this is where it might behoove both Firefox & Google to look for a solution together instead of just sitting back enjoying their bigness?

I've had this problem for a few months, very frustrating. Does not happen all the time. You don't need to retype your search, just reload the blank page and its refreshed.

Hi TOSK, if you want to avoid reloading, please see the workaround in this post: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../970863?page=5#answer-519981.

Very helpful. Many thanks.

I have just installed the latest build, and the problem exists from the install.

One thing that I noticed, sometimes, the page will actually display the data, then wipe it. You have to be paying attention to see it. Also, sometimes it will work the first time you hit the back button, but not successive ones.

Just thought I would add that in case it helps some one with a debug.

I tried all the solutions here to no avail BUT finally found that my problem was caused by a malware agent called pup.optional.smart (plus other suffixes) I read malware tips at malwaretips.com/blog/pup-optional-smart-removal/ and downloaded Malwarebytes to clean up the problem and voila... no more blank google pages !!

Trust me - this took over a week to solve - and I tried a multitude of other "solutions" that failed to work at every turn.

PS - this solved the problem for multiple browsers... not just Firefox.

I am glad the MalwareBytes worked for you, but it not the total solution. I ran it and nothing was found, and of course nothing fixed. As it was a clean install, that did not surprise me. I did the disable of prediction (setting the google search property), and that seemed to work. But I only tested it twice..

Thx for replies.