Hi silvercbx, I assume your contacts weren't deleted, it's just the connection between Compose and your contacts that has stopped working in Firefox.

Unless this is a general problem affecting all Firefox users on whatever email website you're using, I would just give you my standard comments. However, if your Firefox has had any problems with making secure connections, we should address that first since it could affect background communications.

If a site is generally known to work in Firefox, these are general suggestions to try when it stops working normally:

Double-check content blockers: Firefox's Content Blocking feature and extensions that counter ads and tracking may break websites that embed third party content (meaning, from a secondary server).

(A) Do you see a shield icon toward the left end of the address bar, near the lock icon? More info on managing the Tracking Protection feature in this article: What happened to Tracking Protection?.

(B) Extensions such as Adblock Plus, Blur, Disconnect, Ghostery, NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin or uMatrix should provide toolbar buttons to manage blocked content in a page. There may or may not be a number on the icon indicating the number of blocked items; you may need to click the button to see what's going on and test whether you need to make an exception for this site.

Cache and Cookies: When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

(1) Clear Firefox's Cache

See: How to clear the Firefox cache

If you have a large hard drive, this might take a few minutes.

(2) Remove the site's cookies (save any pending work first). While viewing a page on the site, try either:

• right-click (on Mac Ctrl+click) a blank area of the page and choose View Page Info > Security > "Clear Cookies and Site Data"
• (menu bar) Tools > Page Info > Security > "Clear Cookies and Site Data"
• click the padlock or "i" icon in the address bar, then the ">" button, then More Information, and finally the "Clear Cookies and Site Data" button

In the dialog that opens, you will see one or more matches to the current address so you can remove the site's cookies individually without affecting other sites.

Then try reloading the page. Does that help?

Testing in Firefox's Safe Mode: In its Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox. (On Mac, hold down the option/alt key instead of the Shift key.)

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• (menu bar) Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

Well, didn't really get a chance to try any of the proposed tacts as, while I was waiting, I did a 'restart' and, after that, the Compose worked as it should. Don't know the problem occurred but it's gone now. (?)

Many times, it is better to be lucky than smart. ;-)

how do I access my contacts?

Hi harris.skeptic, this thread is about when you are composing a new email address message on an email site such as Gmail, Yahoo mail, or Outlook. When you start typing in an address field (like "To") the site may show you matches from your contacts stored with the site.

Is that related to your problem?

Note: if you are using Thunderbird to work with your mail instead of going to the mail provider's website, there is a separate forum for that and you can start a new question here:

https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/thunderbird/fix-problems

Keep scrolling down past suggested articles and discussion to continue with the new question form.