When you open a new window (Ctrl+n), Firefox normally displays your home page. When you open a new tab in an existing window (Ctrl+t), Firefox displays the new tab page.

Assuming the problem is with every new tab, one of your extensions may be overriding your setting. You can review, disable, and/or remove extensions on the add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, on the right side, if in doubt, disable. (Or if obviously bad, Remove.)

Usually a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Does that let you view the new tab page normally?

To use the new tab page as your home page, manually type in the address about:newtab in the Options dialog. See: Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings.

Forgot to mention: when Reset is grayed out, that means the preference already is set to its default value.

I do have an two (2) extension listed; Google Translator and IDS_SS_NAME IDS_SS_VERSION (disabled). Google translator is enabled and the IDS is disabled. Is something different I need to do to either of these extensions?

Thank you for your assistance.

I removed the Google translator and I left the IDS_SS as disabled, restarted Mozilla and the tiles/thumbnails are still not showing when I open a new tab.

The built-in new tab page has a light gray "gear" icon and the wording "What is this page" on the upper right side of the page. Do you see either of those?

No I do not see either of those.

If you type or paste about:newtab into the address bar and press Enter, does the page with tiles (and the gear icon) display?

If yes, hmm, something is interfering with your using that as your actual new tab page.

If no, hmm, your installation of Firefox might be damaged.

Did you set the home page to about:newtab?

You can check the home page setting:

• Tools > Options > General > Startup: Home page
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/How+to+set+the+home+page

I see the "gear icon" and "What is this page" on the upper right side of the page. I clicked the gear icon and it is set to enhanced.

Okay, good. If you go back and look in about:config, does this property still show about:newtab or has it been changed to something else?

(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 newtab and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Possible values for the browser.newtab.url preference are as follows:

• Page thumbnails (default) => about:newtab
• Blank tab => about:blank
• Built-in Firefox home page => about:home
• Any other page => full URL to the page

Is there anything strange here?

No.. this is how it is setup. But I'm still not seeing my recent or suggested sites...

I don't get it. Maybe you have a hidden extension? Those are disabled in Firefox's Safe Mode. That's a standard diagnostic tool to deactivate extensions and some advanced features of Firefox. More info: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.

You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

Not all add-ons are disabled: Flash and other plugins still run

After Firefox shuts down, a small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Reset).

Any difference?

In case your Firefox program files got damaged by the latest update, you could try the following type of reinstall that does not touch your settings files. Important: do NOT uninstall Firefox first. That is not needed.

Clean Reinstall

(1) Download a fresh installer for Firefox 36.0.1 from https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ to a convenient location. (Scroll down to your preferred language.)

(2) Exit out of Firefox.

(3) Rename the program folder

(64-bit Windows folder names)

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox

to

C:\Program Files (x86)\OldFirefox

(32-bit Windows folder names)

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox

to

C:\Program Files\OldFirefox

(4) Run the installer you downloaded in #1. It should automatically connect to your existing settings.

Any improvement?

Note: Some plugins may exist only in that OldFirefox folder. If something essential is missing, look in these folders:

• \OldFirefox\Plugins
• \OldFirefox\browser\plugins

Also, apologies if this sounds like a dumb question, but is Firefox gathering history at all? You can check for recent history in any of these places:

• "3-bar" menu button > History
• tap the Alt key to activate the classic menu bar > History
• Ctrl+h to open the History sidebar

Also make sure that the disk cache is enabled and working. You can check that on the about:cache page. You can open about: pages via the location/address bar.

See also:

• Firefox/Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Cached Web Content (Clear Now)