This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

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

How do I stop FF 18.0 from resetting pref.js on startup

  • 9 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by Donnie

more options

I am trying to implement a suggested solution to Search on home page does not work. To do this I am advised to reset the key - browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone.

I do this and check the value in pref.js and via trouble shooting information. The value has been removed.
I exit FF. Checking pref.js shows value not present in file.
I restart FF and the line has been restored to pref.js (confirmed by troubleshooting info) .

How do I stop this value from being reinstated ?

I am trying to implement a suggested solution to Search on home page does not work. To do this I am advised to reset the key - browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone. I do this and check the value in pref.js and via trouble shooting information. The value has been removed. I exit FF. Checking pref.js shows value not present in file. I restart FF and the line has been restored to pref.js (confirmed by troubleshooting info) . How do I stop this value from being reinstated ?

Chosen solution

At-least it's working now & issue is resolved =0 Glad something whichever answer it was helped you to solve your issue.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (9)

more options

When you enter a search term in the Firefox location bar and press Enter, Firefox will per default do a "I'm feeling lucky" Google search and redirect you to the first result that matches your search term. This behaviour can be changed by a number of add-ons. If you'd like to restore the previous default behaviour, please follow these steps:

  1. Enter about:config in the Firefox location bar and press Enter.
  2. You should see a warning that making changes to the Firefox configuration can be potentially harmful to Firefox's integrity. Click the I'll be careful, I promise button to continue.
  3. In the Search box at the top, enter keyword as the search term. You should see a few remaining items, one of these is keyword.URL. It should be bold.
  4. Right-click on the keyword.URL setting and select Reset from the dropdown menu.

Now you're done. Please report back if this fixes your problem. Thanks in advance!

You can find more information about the Location bar search feature in the Location bar search article.

more options

hello paul, do you have a file named user.js present in your profile folder? if so rename or delete that file - it is used to override settings from pref.js...

How to fix preferences that won't save

more options

I o have that file but it does not contain an over-ride to the value i am changing. I renamed file anyway, changed value and problem still occurs :-(

more options

The re-setting of keyword.URl does not reslove the problem either

more options

ok, this preference is getting updated by firefox on each start automatically, so what you're observing is actually expected behaviour: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone

do the other suggestions from https://support.mozilla.org/questions/934580 work to address your original problem?

more options

install the Search Reset Tool. & see if this helps.

more options

Thanks for the update paul, try installing the add-on I just indicated & post back with the results.

more options

Madperson : I tried all the suggestions in questions/934580 but the issue was not resolved. Note that local storage - search engine was set to null but even after resetting as shown tthe problem still existed.

Dbelica82: Installed search reset add on - did not resolve issue.

All: However, I shut down my machine, after all the above actions. FF came up minimised. Screen size was set to reduced. - reset , tried again - it all worked !?!

Cannot pinpoint what worked. Thanks to both for your suggestions and help

regards

more options

Chosen Solution

At-least it's working now & issue is resolved =0 Glad something whichever answer it was helped you to solve your issue.