My Firefox window is showing both the orange bar and the regular Menu bar, Forward and Back buttons don't work, and my bookmarks toolbar isn't showing up.
Since two days ago, whenever I open Firefox, several weird things have happened: 1) The bar at the top of the window (I don't know the name; the bar with the program name, minimize and close buttons) appears twice, the regular one on top and the one with the orange Firefox menu-button beneath it. Under that is the "classic" menu bar. Both menus and sets of window buttons work. If I right-click on the menu to Customize, when I click out of the dialog the classic menu bar no longer works (all buttons grayed out) but the Firefox button still works. 2) The Forward and Back buttons do not work. Neither does pressing Alt+Right or Alt+Left. However, the History menu does show previously visited pages correctly. 3) My Bookmarks toolbar is checked on the list of toolbars to show, but where it should be there is just an empty space in the menu-area. If I right-click on the space, the menu that you get from right-clicking a bookmark shows up. However, clicking the options on it does not do anything (besides making the menu go away).
All Replies (4)
Sounds like things are messed up enough that there's not much point in checking things out further first. Take a picture of your toolbars, in case there's anything there that you have from your own customizations.
- Bring up your current profile directory by typing about:support into the location bar, then click on "Open Containing Folder"
- Bring Firefox down properly using "Firefox" button > Exit (you said File>Exit wasn't going to work). I would verify that Firefox is down through the Task Manager simply because you will be working on the profile. Windows 7 (only) has a nice Keyboard shortcut ("Ctrl+Shift+Esc") to bring up the WTM then check under the "Processes" tab that firefox.exe is not running.
- Rename localstore.rdf to something else localstore_bad.xxx
- Restart Firefox in your normal manner
- Recustomize your toolbars "Firefox" button > Options > Toolbar layout... or ["Alt"] > View > Toolbars > Customize -- don't forget small icons choice.
If you had used a sensible approach such as putting the search bar next to the menus, and switched to Firefox 4 or 5 and hid the menu bar, then you would see both the "Firefox" button and the menu bar, and you could lose something else if you customized heights of toolbars. If I hid the menu bar, then I would see both and both would work.
Reference for your problem -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Corrupt_localstore.rdf
You can make Firefox 5.0 look like Firefox 3.6.19, see numbered items 1-10 in the following topic Fix Firefox 4.0 toolbar user interface, problems (Make Firefox 5.0, or 4.0.1, look like 3.6). Whether or not you make changes, you should be aware of what has changed and what you have to do to use changed or missing features.
Please help to reduce the number of unsolved questions by marking reply that best helps with original question as "Solved" once you are working properly again.
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).
- Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
- https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
In Firefox 4 and later Safe mode disables extensions and disables hardware acceleration. Try to disable hardware acceleration.
- Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
If disabling hardware acceleration works then check if there is an update available for your graphics display driver.
I encountered this problem as well after updating to 10.0. FF started up looking like this, but with no homepage: http://i.imgur.com/zCf3S.png
Using cor-el's suggestion for disabling add-ons allowed me to start up the most reliable add-ons and continue enabling one at a time until I found my troublemaker (Facebook Disconnect 2.0.1).
framerotblues suggestion worked for me. I was having the following problems after 10.0 update:
>No back/forward buttons. >Nothing in address bar. >Bookmark toolbar would not automatically load. Even though it was checked as a toolbar to view, I had to uncheck and check it again every time I closed/opened Firefox. >Could not access add-ons. Neither through menu toolbar nor using ctrl-shift-a
Restarted Firefox with add-ons disabled (help->restart with add-ons disabled). Removed Facebook Disconnect from add-ons. Restarted and everything seems to be working.