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my search bar wont search the web anymore

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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i can type in the bar, select from the drop down menu but, when i hit enter or click "search Web" nothing happens. Window 7 Home pro 64 bit OS

i can type in the bar, select from the drop down menu but, when i hit enter or click "search Web" nothing happens. Window 7 Home pro 64 bit OS

All Replies (2)

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Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Firefox Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode that temporarily turns off hardware acceleration, resets some settings, and disables add-ons (extensions and themes).

If Firefox is open, you can restart in Firefox Safe Mode from the Help menu:

  • Click the menu button New Fx Menu, click Help Help-29 and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

If Firefox is not running, you can start Firefox in Safe Mode as follows:

  • On Windows: Hold the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • On Mac: Hold the option key while starting Firefox.
  • On Linux: Quit Firefox, go to your Terminal and run firefox -safe-mode
    (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)

When the Firefox Safe Mode window appears, select "Start in Safe Mode".

SafeMode-Fx35

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, theme, or hardware acceleration. Please follow the steps in the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article to find the cause.

To exit Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help others with the same problem.

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Did you check in about:preferences#search if there is a search engine selected?

Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default built-in search engines that come with Firefox and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.


There are other things that need attention.

The System Details List shows that you have multiple Flash plugins.

  1. Shockwave Flash 18.0 r0
  2. Shockwave Flash 20.0 r0

You can find the installation path of all plugins on the about:plugins page.

You can check the Flash player installation folder for multiple Flash player plugins and remove older version(s) of the plugin (NPSWF32) and possibly (re)install the latest Flash player.

  • (32 bit Windows) C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\
  • (64 bit Windows) C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\