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Firefox has no search engines and is not useable.

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  • 6 have this problem
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  • Last reply by KhunRoger

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I have totally removed Firefox and re installed it many times, but Firefox still has no search engines. The address bar and search options are non responsive. There is no option to choose or install any search engines.

I have totally removed Firefox and re installed it many times, but Firefox still has no search engines. The address bar and search options are non responsive. There is no option to choose or install any search engines.

All Replies (3)

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Hello,

The Reset Firefox feature can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your essential information. Note: This will cause you to lose any Extensions, Open websites, and some Preferences.

To Reset Firefox do the following:

  1. Go to Firefox > Help > Troubleshooting Information.
  2. Click the "Reset Firefox" button.
  3. Firefox will close and reset. After Firefox is done, it will show a window with the information that is imported. Click Finish.
  4. Firefox will open with all factory defaults applied.

Further information can be found in the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article.

Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

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You can check if you have the XML files of the default search engines including Google in the browser\searchplugins folder in the Firefox program folder.

If not then you need to reinstall Firefox.


Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default search engines in the "browser\searchplugins" folder in the Firefox program folder and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.

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This is my good deed for the day, even though it's really late and I must get some sleep....

I really wanted to post this info in two other threads that concern "about:config" not working, but they are archived.

These two:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/939423 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/793112

So I'll post it here as it relates to not having any search plugins.

I could not get "about:config" to work on my netbook.

I also had another problem - no search plugins. And I couldn't copy my searchplugins folder from another PC to the netbook over the network.

I discovered I couldn't create a folder called "searchplugins" in my profile on the netbook and couldn't figure out why until I used some DOS commands and deleted a file called "searchplugins". (I wonder where that came from?)

Then I could create a folder called "searchplugins" and copy all my plugins from the other PC.

Then, and only then, did "about:config" start to work.

So perhaps one of the bright boys at Mozilla can determine why not having any search plugins should stop "about:config" from working.

Time for bed, said Zebedee.