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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

When click on the magnifyinf glass icon in the search bar, nothing happens. It used to drop down a menu of search engines.

  • 1 reply
  • 3 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

jvet
jvet
more options

Next to the URL bar, there is a search field. Before, when I clicked on the magnifying glass icon, a menu would drop down with a selection of search engines (google, bing, yahoo, amazon, youtube, etc). The electricity went off and when I restarted the computer and opened Firefox, clicking on the search menu now does nothing: no drop-down menu, no selection to "Change Search Settings" - nothing.

When I use the field to search, it still uses my default search engine, but the menu is gone and I can't make any changes or select a different search engine since the menu no longer drops down. This is VERY frustrating tome, as I made extensive use of that menu before. Can anyone help me restore that functionality, please? I think whatever file/database controlled the menu got corrupted.

Next to the URL bar, there is a search field. Before, when I clicked on the magnifying glass icon, a menu would drop down with a selection of search engines (google, bing, yahoo, amazon, youtube, etc). The electricity went off and when I restarted the computer and opened Firefox, clicking on the search menu now does nothing: no drop-down menu, no selection to "Change Search Settings" - nothing. When I use the field to search, it still uses my default search engine, but the menu is gone and I can't make any changes or select a different search engine since the menu no longer drops down. This is VERY frustrating tome, as I made extensive use of that menu before. Can anyone help me restore that functionality, please? I think whatever file/database controlled the menu got corrupted.

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can check if you have the XML files of the default search engines including Google in the \browser\searchplugins folder in the Firefox program folder.

  • (32 bit Windows) "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\"
  • (64 bit Windows) "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\"

If not then you need to reinstall Firefox.

You can 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 currently used Firefox profile folder:

Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default search engines in the "browser\searchplugins" folder in the Firefox program folder and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.