After a system restore, my search bar can't be used
My computer had a system restore after a storm shut my computer off after being frozen. No other issues are going on other than when I try to use the search bar, nothing happens. If I use the drop down box in the search bar, the only options I get are Add "Firefox Help", and Manage search engines. If I click on manage search engines, usually I get a list of options, google, yahoo, etc, but it is completely empty and restore defaults is grayed out.
Per other suggestions on this forum, I have upgraded to the latest firefox version, I have also downloaded the serachreset addon which didn't help. Also, there was another post on deleting the formhistory.sqlite file under my profiles, however, when I went to try this, there was no such file for me. (from this website's instructions http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_search_or_add_new_engines)
Please help as I don't want to have to delete the entire program just to find that upon reinstall, I don't have a fix.
Réiteach roghnaithe
I woke up this morning and my computer had updated overnight and restarted, and now my search bar is back :)
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Try to delete the search.json file and a possible search.sqlite file in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.
Firefox will rebuild the search.json file from the default search engines in the "browser\searchplugins" folder in the Firefox program folder and the searchplugins folder in the Firefox profile folder.
There also wasn't a search.sqlite file, only the search.json file which I have deleted twice back to back with no changes in the issues. It adds itself back to the profile but doesnt fix the issue.
Also when I go to that file in my programs folder (the search plugins one) all the files are listed there, but not able to see/use in the manage search engines. Someone said before that after a system restore, it could cause a hold or a block on my profile whatever that means.
You can check if you have the XML files of the default search engines including Google in the browser\searchplugins folder in the Firefox program folder.
If not then you need to reinstall Firefox.
Yeah that's what I just said, I have those folders in that file. But I have the problem even with them being there.
You are sure that they are in browser\searchplugins and not in \searchplugins in the Firefox program folder?
There has been a change and in current Firefox versions some files and folders have been moved to the browser folder and searchplugins is one of them.
Réiteach Roghnaithe
I woke up this morning and my computer had updated overnight and restarted, and now my search bar is back :)