Hello,

The Refresh feature (called "Reset" in older Firefox versions) can fix many issues by restoring Firefox to its factory default state while saving your bookmarks, history, passwords, cookies, and other essential information.

Note: When you use this feature, you will lose any extensions, toolbar customizations, and some preferences. See the Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings article for more information.

To Refresh Firefox:

1. Open the Troubleshooting Information page using one of these methods:
   • Click the menu button , click help and select Troubleshooting Information. A new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.
   • If you're unable to access the Help menu, type about:support in your address bar to bring up the Troubleshooting Information page.
2. At the top right corner of the page, you should see a button that says "Refresh Firefox" ("Reset Firefox" in older Firefox versions). Click on it.
3. Firefox will close. After the refresh process is completed, Firefox will show a window with the information that is imported.
4. Click Finish and Firefox will reopen.

Did this fix the problem? Please report back to us!

Thank you.

@MkII - many thanks for your help.

I THOUGHT it had fixed the problem, but it's returned.

I can't do a reset every time the problem appears, because I need to reload all the plugins (I have 4) and it happened again after reset very quickly.

Hmmmmmm,

How are you adding StartPage as a search engine in Firefox? Startpage has one that might work better.

You can add the old search bar to the toolbar to access this feature. Either:

• On the Preferences page, Search panel, click the second choice for the toolbar controls
• On the Customize panel, drag the search bar to the main toolbar

Go to

https://www.startpage.com/

Look for the green circle + icon on the search bar, click that, and then click the available search engine plugin. On mine, it says "Add Startpage - English"

If you make that one your default, does it work from the usual places?

You can remove the search bar from the toolbar when you're finished with it.

You can also consider to move the search bar to the overflow area in case you want to use it.

This is weird - now it has started behaving again and I haven't done anything else at all. I'll give it a week and see if it recurs. Thanks all for the suggestions - if it recurs I'll try jscher2000 and cor-el's solutions also. Many thanks for your help. I'll let you know what happens.