I can't reproduce this. It's working fine for me. Can you provide more details?

Cheers!

Are you using "Clear history when Firefox closes"?

• Tools > Options > Privacy > Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history": [X] "Clear history when Firefox closes" > Settings
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Clear+Recent+History

• do not clear the Cache because Firefox will disable the disk cache in such a case
• do not clear the Browsing History

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database file in the Firefox profile folder.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Bookmarks+not+saved#w_fix-the-bookmarks-file

The "Clear history when firefox closes" is unchecked. However I did notice when I change under history from "Custom History Settings" to "Remember History" and click ok, close and reopen firefox that the changes did not stay and it reverts back to custom history settings.

That is probably OK.

The "Use custom settings for history" choice allows to see the current history and cookie settings, but selecting this doesn't make any changes to history and cookie settings.
Firefox shows the "Use custom settings for history" selection as an indication that at least one of the history and cookie settings is not the default to make you aware that changes were made.
If all History settings are default then the custom settings are hidden and you see "Firefox will: (Never) Remember History".

Follow these steps:

1. Go to about:config
2. Find keyword.enabled
3. Set the value to true

Note that Firefox 23 and later no longer use the keyword.URL pref, but use the (default) search engine as set in the search bar.

You can check the browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled pref on the about:config page.