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Search bar doesnt launch a search when I press Enter key

  • 8 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 12 views
  • Last reply by ajaygupta22

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When I type something in the search bar, it shows me suggestions. On pressing Enter, it selects the highlighted suggestions. Now that I press Enter again to launch the search query, nothing happens. Search query doesnt go to the network till I mouse-click the lens icon in the search bar. This works fine in my windows machine, so I know it is a supported feature.

When I type something in the search bar, it shows me suggestions. On pressing Enter, it selects the highlighted suggestions. Now that I press Enter again to launch the search query, nothing happens. Search query doesnt go to the network till I mouse-click the lens icon in the search bar. This works fine in my windows machine, so I know it is a supported feature.

All Replies (8)

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Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).


See also:

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Tried safe-mode. It still does not work.

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Is there a search engine selected?

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Yes, the search engine is selected as Google.

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See:


You can try to delete search.sqlite and search.json in the Firefox Profile Folder.

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Didnt help either. I removed the two files from my firefox profile directory (~/.mozilla/firefox/...), killed firefox, started again. Still the same behavior. The two files got regenerated, by the way.

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No, problems here on Linux with the search bar and the Enter key.

Do you have the official Firefox version from the Mozilla site or a special Ubuntu branded version?

Ubuntu usually makes a lot of changes to their branded version and it is possible that they have disabled the Enter key.
You can try the version from the Mozilla site to see if that works better if you have the Ubuntu version.


You can create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile:

There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins" in case there are still problems.

If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile (be careful not to copy corrupted files)

See:

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Thanks for pointing into the direction of changing the Profile. It worked for a new profile. then I checked what was wrong with my profile, and found that some of the files were owned by root, instead of the user I am logged in as. Changed the file permissions, removed all history, and it works absolutely fine now. Thanks!