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.

why does homepage revert to about:newtab

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 12 views
  • Last reply by dickgopks

dickgopks
dickgopks
more options

I use chrome superstart as my homepage, but now it always reverts to about:newtab. I tried changing it in options, when that didn't work I changed it in preference settings, but when I restart it always reverts to about:newtab for the homepage. Then when I click a new tab, superstart comes up.

I use chrome superstart as my homepage, but now it always reverts to about:newtab. I tried changing it in options, when that didn't work I changed it in preference settings, but when I restart it always reverts to about:newtab for the homepage. Then when I click a new tab, superstart comes up.

All Replies (2)

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

Your home page is currently set to about:newtab

  • browser.startup.homepage: about:newtab

Note that your System Details List shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs on each start of Firefox.

The user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. you can check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.

The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)
dickgopks
dickgopks Question owner
more options

I deleted the user.js file, and marked the prefs file as old. All that did was make me reset a lot of permissions in No Script as well as my theme, etc. It still went back to about:newtab. I would note that the same thing happened to my wife's laptop, I'm assuming at the same time. The laptop is running Vista and has different antivirus software. On it, I went to options and changed the homepage back to Superstart, and it worked like it should. I would also note that when I open a new tab on my PC, it comes up as Superstart, and not a new tab of about:newtab. So it's not that big of a deal, I just get annoyed when things don't work as they should.

Thanks, Dick G.