Is the problem when you search from the address bar, or another one of Firefox's built-in bars, or when you go directly to the site?

https://duckduckgo.com/

The initial release of Firefox 78.0 had a bug related to search, but this should have been fixed in today's release of Firefox 78.0.1. To check your version, you can open the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, you should find a row labeled Version.

I am on the latest version 78.0.1 I use middle of the page search bar

Does the Firefox Home / new tab page just sit there doing nothing when you submit the search, or does it navigate to a blank page, or do you get partial results on DDG?

If you use one of the "one-click" buttons to search on a different site, does that work any differently?

The search times out says DDG has server problems. However my most used tabs working perfectly. I restarted the computer and DDG is now responding to search bar input. Don't know what happened or why but I seem to be back up and running. Thanks for your help