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Can't find home page upon opening FF

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I have my home page set to a file of favorite sites located on my on PC. When Firefox loads, it says it can't find it. However, if I click on the HOME icon, it finds it.

I have my home page set to a file of favorite sites located on my on PC. When Firefox loads, it says it can't find it. However, if I click on the HOME icon, it finds it.

All Replies (4)

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Hi beachlady, could you double-check your Firefox shortcut (the icon you use to start Firefox) to see whether it has a mistaken address set up in it?

The Firefox icon can be set up to launch specific pages at startup (or more specifically, when you use the icon). To check whether that is set:

First, open the shortcut as follows:

  • Desktop shortcut: right-click the icon, choose Properties
  • Pinned taskbar icon: right-click the icon, right-click Mozilla Firefox, choose Properties

Windows normally will select the Shortcut tab. If not, go ahead and click the Shortcut tab.

You'll see the Target highlighted. On Windows, that usually is no more and no less than the following (depending on 32-bit/64-bit):

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

If anything follows after that, try clearing it out.

After OK'ing the Properties dialog, you can test right away to confirm that Firefox now launches only your home page. Either:

  • double-click desktop shortcut
  • right-click pinned taskbar icon, click Mozilla Firefox

Was that it?

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This is what I have:

file:///C:/1PAGES2/bookmark/bookmark.htm

As I explained, when I click the icon, it comes up. It is just when I first launch FF.

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beachlady said

This is what I have: file:///C:/1PAGES2/bookmark/bookmark.htm

That's your home page, and the icon works, so it should also load at startup.

One reason it might not load is if there is a broken address in the shortcut. I already gave the steps to check that.

Another possible reason would be if Firefox did not shut down properly and is trying to start up with a crash recovery to a nonexistent page. If you don't exit Firefox before shutting down your system, that's a possible to consider (try giving Firefox 15 second to shut down cleanly before shutting down Windows).

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Suggestion: In the New Tab page hit the "gear" in the upper-right corner and de-select one of the 5 items, like maybe "Recommended by Pocket". Then see if your Homepage opens when you open Firefox.


Until the user does some type of customization on the New Tab page, that is what appears when Firefox is first launched. I did find another way around that "feature", but I don't recall what that was right now.