Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars {web link}

Type about:customizing<enter> in the address bar.

Note: about:customizing is no longer present in Firefox v47+ releases.

• Press Alt or F10 to bring up the toolbar.
  Then View > Toolbars > Customize.
• Right-click on a blank spot in the toolbar and select Customize.

Look for Show / Hide Toolbars at the bottom left.

There is also a Restore Defaults button at the bottom middle.

Many thanks FredMcD for the suggestions. Tried that and nothing works. In fact pressing Alt or F10 on my Mac keyboard doesn't bring up the toolbar. I have to click on View, the main menu at the top, to see the Toolbars menu. (I can still see the main menu providing I don't launch Firefox with an external hyperlink.)

Start Firefox in Safe Mode {web link}

A small dialog should appear. Click Start In Safe Mode (not Refresh). Is the problem still there?

Problem still there - but once again only when I launch Firefox by clicking on any hyperlink, say in an email... However, if I click on the same hyperlink when Firefox is already running then no problem - the menu is there. It is only when Firefox is not open and is launched by clicking on any hyperink.

...also if I right click somewhere in the area where the top level menu of Firefox should be I can see bits of the dropdown menus with the shortcuts but no text. Screenshot attached.

I called for more help. Are you in fullscreen or normal mode?

Type about:support in the address bar and press Enter. Under the main banner, press the button; Copy Text To Clipboard.. Now in the Reply Box on the forum page, do a right-click in the box and select Paste.

If the data is too big, do not worry. It's the top part we need to look at.

This will show us your system details. No Personal Information Is Collected.

Application Basics

Name: Firefox Version: 72.0.1 Build ID: 20200107212822 Update Channel: release User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:72.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/72.0 OS: Darwin 19.2.0 Multiprocess Windows: 3/3 Enabled by default Remote Processes: 4 Enterprise Policies: Inactive Google Location Service Key: Found Google Safebrowsing Key: Found Mozilla Location Service Key: Found Safe Mode: false

Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days

Firefox Features

Name: DoH Roll-Out Version: 1.3.0 ID: doh-rollout@mozilla.org

Name: Firefox Screenshots Version: 39.0.0 ID: screenshots@mozilla.org

Name: Form Autofill Version: 1.0 ID: formautofill@mozilla.org

Name: Web Compat Version: 6.4.0 ID: webcompat@mozilla.org

Name: WebCompat Reporter Version: 1.1.0 ID: webcompat-reporter@mozilla.org

Remote Processes

Type: Web Content Count: 3 / 8

Type: Extension Count: 1

Extensions

Name: Amazon.co.uk Version: 1.1 Enabled: true ID: amazon@search.mozilla.org

Name: Bing Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: bing@search.mozilla.org

Name: Chambers (UK) Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: chambers-en-GB@search.mozilla.org

Name: DuckDuckGo Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: ddg@search.mozilla.org

Name: eBay Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: ebay@search.mozilla.org

Name: Google Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: google@search.mozilla.org

Name: New Tab Override Version: 14.4.0 Enabled: true ID: newtaboverride@agenedia.com

Name: Twitter Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: twitter@search.mozilla.org

Name: Wikipedia (en) Version: 1.0 Enabled: true ID: wikipedia@search.mozilla.org

Graphics

Features Compositing: OpenGL Asynchronous Pan/Zoom: wheel input enabled; scrollbar drag enabled; keyboard enabled; autoscroll enabled WebGL 1 Driver WSI Info: CGL WebGL 1 Driver Renderer: NVIDIA Corporation -- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX OpenGL Engine WebGL 1 Driver Version: 4.1 NVIDIA-14.0.31 355.11.11.10.10.143 WebGL 1 Driver Extensions: GL_ARB_blend_func_extended GL_ARB_draw_buffers_blend GL_ARB_draw_indirect GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility GL_ARB_explicit_attrib_location GL_ARB_gpu_shader_fp64 GL_ARB_gpu_shader5 GL_ARB_instanced_arrays GL_ARB_internalformat_query GL_ARB_occlusion_query2 GL_ARB_sample_shading GL_ARB_sampler_objects GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects GL_ARB_shader_bit_encoding GL_ARB_shader_subroutine GL_ARB_shading_language_include GL_ARB_tessellation_shader GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object_rgb32 GL_ARB_texture_cube_map_array GL_ARB_texture_gather GL_ARB_texture_query_lod GL_ARB_texture_rgb10_a2ui GL_ARB_texture_storage GL_ARB_texture_swizzle GL_ARB_timer_query GL_ARB_transform_feedback2 GL_ARB_transform_feedback3 GL_ARB_vertex_attrib_64bit GL_ARB_vertex_type_2_10_10_10_rev GL_ARB_viewport_array GL_EXT_debug_label GL_EXT_debug_marker GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample_blit_scaled GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_sRGB_decode GL_APPLE_client_storage GL_APPLE_container_object_shareable GL_APPLE_flush_render GL_APPLE_object_purgeable GL_APPLE_rgb_422 GL_APPLE_row_bytes GL_APPLE_texture_range GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_NV_texture_barrier WebGL 1 Extensions: ANGLE_instanced_arrays EXT_blend_minmax EXT_color_buffer_half_float EXT_disjoint_timer_query EXT_float_blend EXT_frag_depth EXT_shader_texture_lod EXT_sRGB EXT_texture_compression_rgtc EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic OES_element_index_uint OES_fbo_render_mipmap OES_standard_derivatives OES_texture_float OES_texture_float_linear OES_texture_half_float OES_texture_half_float_linear OES_vertex_array_object WEBGL_color_buffer_float WEBGL_compressed_texture_s3tc WEBGL_compressed_texture_s3tc_srgb WEBGL_debug_renderer_info WEBGL_debug_shaders WEBGL_depth_texture WEBGL_draw_buffers WEBGL_lose_context WebGL 2 Driver WSI Info: CGL WebGL 2 Driver Renderer: NVIDIA Corporation -- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX OpenGL Engine WebGL 2 Driver Version: 4.1 NVIDIA-14.0.31 355.11.11.10.10.143 WebGL 2 Driver Extensions: GL_ARB_blend_func_extended GL_ARB_draw_buffers_blend GL_ARB_draw_indirect GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility GL_ARB_explicit_attrib_location GL_ARB_gpu_shader_fp64 GL_ARB_gpu_shader5 GL_ARB_instanced_arrays GL_ARB_internalformat_query GL_ARB_occlusion_query2 GL_ARB_sample_shading GL_ARB_sampler_objects GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects GL_ARB_shader_bit_encoding GL_ARB_shader_subroutine GL_ARB_shading_language_include GL_ARB_tessellation_shader GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object_rgb32 GL_ARB_texture_cube_map_array GL_ARB_texture_gather GL_ARB_texture_query_lod GL_ARB_texture_rgb10_a2ui GL_ARB_texture_storage GL_ARB_texture_swizzle GL_ARB_timer_query GL_ARB_transform_feedback2 GL_ARB_transform_feedback3 GL_ARB_vertex_attrib_64bit GL_ARB_vertex_type_2_10_10_10_rev GL_ARB_viewport_array GL_EXT_debug_label GL_EXT_debug_marker GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample_blit_scaled GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_sRGB_decode GL_APPLE_client_storage GL_APPLE_container_object_shareable GL_APPLE_flush_render GL_APPLE_object_purgeable GL_APPLE_rgb_422 GL_APPLE_row_bytes GL_APPLE_texture_range GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_NV_texture_barrier WebGL 2 Extensions: EXT_color_buffer_float EXT_disjoint_timer_query EXT_float_blend EXT_texture_compression_rgtc EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic OES_texture_float_linear WEBGL_compressed_texture_s3tc WEBGL_compressed_texture_s3tc_srgb WEBGL_debug_renderer_info WEBGL_debug_shaders WEBGL_lose_context Uses Tiling: true Uses Tiling (Content): true Off Main Thread Painting Enabled: true Off Main Thread Painting Worker Count: 4 Target Frame Rate: 60 GPU #1 Active: Yes Vendor ID: 0x10de Device ID: 0x11a3 RAM: 0

Diagnostics AzureCanvasBackend: skia AzureContentBackend: skia AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: none CMSOutputProfile: <code removed - c>

tubascuba said

Problem still there - but once again only when I launch Firefox by clicking on any hyperlink, say in an email... However, if I click on the same hyperlink when Firefox is already running then no problem - the menu is there. It is only when Firefox is not open and is launched by clicking on any hyperink.

Hello tubascuba,

I'm puzzled .... What I'm reading is that you don't see the menu bar when Firefox is not running, and when you launch Firefox by clicking on a hyperlink. You're using another browser then ?

Then you mention that you see the menu bar when Firefox is open. You will of course only see Firefox features when you're using Firefox.

I must be totally misconstruing your posts (?)

What's shown in your screenshot is a complete mystery to me ....

As for the Alt key (or F10) not bringing up the "toolbar": those keys bring up the menu bar.

In the article that FredMcD posted a link to, you will see exactly how to bring up the menubar (images and all).

If I launch Firefox by clicking on the Firefox icon then it opens with the top menu visible. If Firefox launches because a) I have it as my default browser and b) I click on a hyperlink let's say in an email then when the hyperlink causes Firefox to launch to top menu is missing.

   The last screen shot was taken of the top part of Firefox (where the main menu line should be) after it had launched because I clicked on a hyperlink. Although the menu is not visible if I right click on where the main menu should be then the result is what was shown in the screen shot.
    So the difference is - open Firefox directly = no problem but open Firefox via clicking on a link = no top menu.

I did mention earlier that if I choose to use Safari then there is no problem whatsoever when I launch Safari via a hyperlink.

...and now, as a result of the reset to default etc., I can't recover my orignal settings even though I have an 'old data' file. I am trying to follow instructions for restarting with 'old data' but it doesn't work for me at the moment. Most frustrating - I just can't find what I am doing wrong.

    Many thanks for trying to help me with this.

Look on your desktop. Do you see a folder called; Old Firefox? Look inside. Look for the folder with the latest creation date.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

This is a reported known issue on Catalina.

• Bug 1603956 - macOS Catalina: Menu labels missing when cold opening Firefox from link or other app

(please do not comment in bug reports
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)

OK, thank you everyone for your prompt attention to my question. Very much appreciated. Waiting for the fix!