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Have Firefox & Bing and when I open Firefox I get Ref A and string of characters; then when I get to Bing, no toolbar with bookmarks, etc or way to access mail.

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  • Last reply by carolynhs

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I made Bing my browser and it was working fine until today. When I open Firefox I get a message Ref A: and then a long string of characters. I click on the home icon and the string changes. After doing this several times I get the Bing search page. I do not get the Firefox start page with the tool bar that has my book marks, history etc. I cannot clear the cache if I cannot not get the history tab. If I go the the mozilla firefox program folder and open it, there is a tool bar but cannot clear recent history, etc. there. I do not have an administrator & password on my home desk top; it is just me. I tried to follow your suggestions, but they do not apply to my situation. I really don't know if this is a firefox or bing problem. I used google before bing and had no problems; just wanted to try bing.

I made Bing my browser and it was working fine until today. When I open Firefox I get a message Ref A: and then a long string of characters. I click on the home icon and the string changes. After doing this several times I get the Bing search page. I do not get the Firefox start page with the tool bar that has my book marks, history etc. I cannot clear the cache if I cannot not get the history tab. If I go the the mozilla firefox program folder and open it, there is a tool bar but cannot clear recent history, etc. there. I do not have an administrator & password on my home desk top; it is just me. I tried to follow your suggestions, but they do not apply to my situation. I really don't know if this is a firefox or bing problem. I used google before bing and had no problems; just wanted to try bing.

Chosen solution

Can you attach a screenshot?

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot.


Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window or otherwise make changes.
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Seçilmiş Həll

Can you attach a screenshot?

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot.


Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window or otherwise make changes.
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I realized that I had my screen on full screen and that is why I could not see my tool bar. I did the clear history, etc. and think that it is now okay. Thanks for the reply. I don't know why I was getting the Ref A: etc., but must have been something with the history.