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All the search engine plugins have disappeared - can no longer search

  • 3 replies
  • 8 have this problem
  • 9 views
  • Last reply by panda2

panda2
panda2
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Firefox updated automatically to version 5.0. On restarting it, searching wouldn't work. When clicking the dropdown arrow on the left and clicking Manage Search Engines, there is a blank list indicating no search engines are installed. The web site indicates there should be several including Google, but this does not seem to be available when I go to the web site. I have checked the searchplugins folder in C:\Program files\Mozilla Firefox and there appear to be some xml documents there with the same names as included search engines.

Firefox updated automatically to version 5.0. On restarting it, searching wouldn't work. When clicking the dropdown arrow on the left and clicking Manage Search Engines, there is a blank list indicating no search engines are installed. The web site indicates there should be several including Google, but this does not seem to be available when I go to the web site. I have checked the searchplugins folder in C:\Program files\Mozilla Firefox and there appear to be some xml documents there with the same names as included search engines.

All Replies (3)

David McRitchie
David McRitchie
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"Click on "Manage Search Engines" which you found (which is normally at then end of the list) then click on "Restore Defaults".

also look for additional possibility and watch ("Get email updates") for possible additional answers at https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/837019

panda2
panda2 Question owner
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The Restore Defaults is greyed out and cannot be activated. So no luck there.

Thanks.

panda2
panda2 Question owner
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For information.

I discovered a lot of files (and folders) had been set to hidden. This was the case with all the files in the searchplugins folder. Once I'd unset the attribute and restarted Firefox, the search engines all reappeared.