Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Natao arisiva ity resaka mitohy ity. Mametraha fanontaniana azafady raha mila fanampiana.

autocomplete URL not working

  • 9 valiny
  • 1 manana an'ity olana ity
  • 1 view
  • Valiny farany nomen'i jMac

more options

Autocomplete of URLs used to work. I cleared my history, and it has quit working. For instance, if I had gone to amazon.com, exit and start entering the URL again, it would autocomplete.

This page says that it does that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox#w_url-autocomplete

But it has quit working for me and I can't find any option to turn it on. I've looked in preferences#search and in privacy, but I don't see anything to set it.

Is there a way to turn it back on? (I'm using version 75.0.)

Autocomplete of URLs used to work. I cleared my history, and it has quit working. For instance, if I had gone to amazon.com, exit and start entering the URL again, it would autocomplete. This page says that it does that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox#w_url-autocomplete But it has quit working for me and I can't find any option to turn it on. I've looked in preferences#search and in privacy, but I don't see anything to set it. Is there a way to turn it back on? (I'm using version 75.0.)

Vahaolana nofidina

You can check this urlbar pref on the about:config page.

  • browser.urlbar.autoFill = true

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

Hamaky an'ity valiny ity @ sehatra 👍 0

All Replies (9)

more options

Vahaolana Nofidina

You can check this urlbar pref on the about:config page.

  • browser.urlbar.autoFill = true

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

more options

Thanks for that suggestion. The option is set to true. To make sure it was set, I toggled it to false and back to true. It still doesn't autocomplete the URL the way it used to.

(Windows 10, build 1909, BTW)

more options

I had five extensions installed - I disabled them but it didn't fix the problem.

I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, clean, same problem.

more options

If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page

If errors are reported with "Verify Integrity", close and restart Firefox and retry.

If "Verify Integrity" cannot repair places.sqlite, rename/remove all places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

  • keep a backup copy of places.sqlite in case a new places.sqlite database has to be created

See also:

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

more options

I tried the Verify, it said: > Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 5120KiB + The database has been vacuumed ...

That didn't fix it. I went to about:profiles to delete the two files you said, but it says "This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted." Should I rename them? Close Firefox and delete the files?


Later: I created a new profile, same problem.

Novain'i jMac t@

more options

For what it's worth, I tried an experiment in a new profile that had never visited Amazon.

(1)

I submitted amazon.com in the address bar. Firefox redirected and loaded https://www.amazon.com/

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. When I typed am in the URL bar, I did not get any autofill suggestion (a gave me a different site).

I used the drop-down to load https://www.amazon.com/

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. Now when I typed a in the URL bar, I got https://www.amazon.com/ as the autofill suggestion.

(2)

In the Library window (Ctrl+Shift+h), I used "Forget About This Site" to erase Firefox's memory of Amazon.

I submitted a search for amazon and clicked the result link to https://www.amazon.com/

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. When I typed am in the URL bar, I did not get any autofill suggestion (a gave me a different site).

I went back to the search results and repeated those steps. Still no suggestion.

I went back to Amazon and bookmarked it. I used an older bookmark to go to to a different page. Now when I typed a in the URL bar, I got https://www.amazon.com/ as the autofill suggestion.

I went to the Library (Ctrl+Shift+b) and deleted the Amazon bookmark.

Now when I typed am in the URL bar I got no suggestion.

(3)

In the Library window (Ctrl+Shift+h), I used "Forget About This Site" to erase Firefox's memory of Amazon.

I pasted the full URL https://www.amazon.com/ in the address bar and pressed Enter to load it.

I used a bookmark to go to to a different page. When I typed a in the URL bar, I got https://www.amazon.com/ as the autofill suggestion..

Conclusion

Firefox seems requires particular actions before it will suggest a site in the address bar such as

  • Loading the final URL from history
  • Bookmarking the page
  • Typing the final URL in (or copy/pasting the final address to) the URL bar and submitting it there

Possibly other methods of accessing a site may trigger an autofill suggestion if repeated over time, but that is what I saw in this test.

It's possible this is different from older versions but since I disable this feature, I wouldn't know.

more options

That seems to be a different behavior from before. Version 75 was released 11 days ago - I wonder if something got messed up.

more options

Followup: my laptop running the same version and the same version of Windows does NOT have the problem.

I'm thinking I need to completely wipe Firefox and its files. When I was reinstalling, it said that it was keeping some files.


Later: I uninstalled Firefox (again), and deleted the folders the instructions said to delete, including one in %appdata%. I reinstalled it, and the problem still exists.

Novain'i jMac t@

more options

Well, now it started working again!