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My new tab page displays only an empty grid. Missing thumbnails -and- sites. I -think- my settings are correct. Please advise.

  • 18 replies
  • 123 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by InspectorPL

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My new tab page displays only an empty grid. Missing thumbnails -and- sites. I -think- my settings are correct. Please advise.

My new tab page displays only an empty grid. Missing thumbnails -and- sites. I -think- my settings are correct. Please advise.

All Replies (18)

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Is it possible that you have cleared your Firefox browser cache? You could try visiting a few of your most frequently visited pages then press Ctrl+t again to see whether Firefox has captured new thumbnails and starts filling in the page.

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Not in my case. I updated two days ago, and read a few forums and threads, gave it a day or so to build the cache. Nothing...no thumbnails. I then purposely reset the cache...surfed for the day...then opened a new tab and clicked on each "empty space" which was showing the name of the sites...but no thumbnail. Waiting a few more hours...opened a new tab...still nothing. It just looks dumb...can you suggest other fixes?

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Are you keeping history (History > Show All History)?

  • Tools > Options > Privacy > Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history"
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Yes, I am keeping history, here's a screenshot of some history and the Privacy settings.

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The new tab shows links to websites...there are just no thumbnails to accompany them. See screenshot.

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What are the settings for clearing history when Firefox closes?

Make sure that you do not clear the Browsing Cache as that will remove the thumbnails that are stored in it.

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That could be it, I did have Cache being cleared....I'll surf around and see if that solves the problem.

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That was it, they seem to be coming in now. Thanks for the troubleshooting.

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You're welcome

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Hi,

This is also an issue for those who use the "Webdevelopment Toolbar", you can disable your cache there, if so, the thumbnails won't get rendered.

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There is a quirk in the Preferences>Privacy>Clear history...>Cache setting that muddies the issue. One would expect that, if you clear cache at shutdown, thumbnails would be regenerated in a new session as the links are used to visit the tabbed sites. This is not the case. If the 'Clear history - [Cache]' box is checked, you will never see thumbnails. In fact, if you check that box during a session, thumbnails disappear immediately and new ones will not appear. If you then uncheck the box, the thumbnails immediately reappear -- without having to revisit the sites.

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Hi,

I still have the same problem, after checking what was written above... :-( I've noticed one "suspicious" thing - when I check about: cache I can see:

Offline cache device: Number of entries: 0 Maximum storage size: 512000 KiB Storage in use: 0 KiB Cache Directory: D:\Mozilla\Firefox\z33tkfge.default\OfflineCache

so, like cache is not used at alll ?! Mentioned about directory exists and consists only one file: index.sqlite.

Any ideas ?

Modified by InspectorPL

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Hi InspectorPL, you should see on the about:cache page three categories: memory, disk, and offline. The offline cache is used by web applications that want to be available to run offline; ordinary cached files are in the disk cache.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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Hi,

yes, and it contains only two sections: memory and offline:

Information about the Cache Service Memory cache device Number of entries: 572 Maximum storage size: 21504 KiB Storage in use: 4880 KiB Inactive storage: 4880 KiB List Cache Entries

Offline cache device Number of entries: 0 Maximum storage size: 512000 KiB Storage in use: 0 KiB Cache Directory: D:\Mozilla\Firefox\z33tkfge.default\OfflineCache

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Hi InspectorPL, have you disabled disk caching? There probably are multiple ways to do this, but what comes to mind are the following:

(1) Options / Preferences dialog

(WIN) orange Firefox button or classic Tools menu > Options > Advanced
(MAC) Firefox > Preferences > Advanced
(LINUX) Edit > Preferences > Advanced

On the "Network" min-tab, under "Cached Web Content" do you have the storage size customized to zero?

(2) About:config preferences editor

(i) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(ii) In the filter box, type or paste cache and pause while the list is filtered

Is browser.cache.disk.enable customized to false?

Is network.http.use-cache customized to false?

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Hi,

yes! I have no idea when and why I changed it (probably some "great" net article), but I had browser.cache.disk.enable set to false. When I changed it now, it's definitively better, but surprisingly, still some thumbnails are empty (even after opening the page, waiting till all loads, etc.). For example Linkedin.com - I see it all the time as empty... But all in all - thanks for help! It's definitively better then it was before :-)

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Pages that send a no-store or no-cache header aren't cached and thus Firefox does not generate a thumbnail.

  • www.linkedin.com: Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store
  • bug 756881 - New tab thumbnails not displayed (or old images displayed) for Facebook, Twitter (sites using Cache-Control no-store)

Modified by cor-el

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Ok, thanks! That clarifies the issue... :-)