
Google home page black and can't change . . .
Machine: Dell Inspiron 15 CPU: Intel i5-7200U @ 2.5 GHz OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS RAM: 16 GB GPU: AMD Radeon R5 M445
Yesterday I switched on my PC, opened Firefox and the home page was black. See the attached screenshot. This is not caused by some accidental switching on of the dark mode. Dark mode is clearly off. Neither can I adjust settings to make the Google home page revert to its customary light grey shade.
This isn't a big deal, I know. And it has happened before and in a short period gone away by itself. Maybe it is to do with a glitch in the latest Firefox version. But it has an unpleasant appearance and discourages surfing.
My Chrome Google home page doesn't have this issue.
Can anyone advise on how to fix this unwanted black screen problem ?
Krejt Përgjigjet (14)
Hi tamjik,
Thanks for reporting this issue. I can consistently reproduce this from Firefox 144 as well as from another browser. Maybe there's a glitch on Google's end. If you have other browser(s) on your device, can you perhaps help test?
I just started experiencing this a couple days ago as well. I have ensured that Windows 11, Google search, and Firefox settings are all explicitly set to Light Mode.
The page in question is www.google.com
No other pages appear this way, including other Google pages (Maps, Calendar, Voice, etc.).
Interestingly, if I change the Google search settings to Dark Mode, the page is darkened, but it isn't exactly the same as the screenshot above. Google's Dark Mode puts the "Google" lettering in grays, not colors like this. And the other text (like next to the menu in the upper right) is white, so it is easily read.
This leads me to believe that this is not a Google issue...
Ndryshuar
Sorry if this keep getting duplicated, but I'm not seeing my replies in the thread.
I started having this issue a couple days ago as well. I ensured that Windows 11, Google search setting, and Firefox setting are all explicitly in Light Mode.
The only page that seems to have this issue is "www dot google dot com". All other pages seem correct, including other Google pages like Maps, Calendar, Voice, etc.
Interestingly, if I change the Google search setting to Dark Mode, the screen is still darkened, but it is not exactly the same as what is show above. The Google lettering in in grays, not colors. And the other text - like in the upper right next to the menus - is in white so it is easily read.
This leads me to believe it is not a Google issue. I have inquired on the Google support pages and it is not a know issue to them.
Kiki/Scott:
There is no such issue in Chrome's google.com page.
So, to me, it's seeming to be a Firefox update thing.
As I said in OP, it's happened before but righted itself some days later. Maybe the same will happen soon.
Hey, buddies - it's back grey again !
Is Firefox AI playing with us or what ? !
For what it's worth, I am running FF 143.0.4 Mozilla snap for Ubuntu, canonical-002 - 1.0
I can't replicate this four hours later. In a Reddit thread earlier today, users were saying that this only affects logged in users, and it occurs both in Firefox and Chrome. Maybe it's fixed?
To ensure you have the latest scripts from Google, reload the page bypassing cache with any of these:
- Shift+click the Reload button
- Ctrl+Shift+R (on Mac, Command+Shift+R)
- Ctrl+F5 (on Mac, Command+F5)
@tamjk Can you update to 144 and see if it makes a difference?
I was about to file a bug in Bugzilla, but after some more tests, I can confirm @jscher claim that this affects only the logged in users, regardless of the browser so I filed a question to Google Community instead.
@Kiki
I use a snap package for Firefox.
I tried sudo snap refresh to no avail as all snaps seem up to date.
What usually happens is after shutting FF down, the update to FF comes through automatically. But this hasn't happened yet. If the effect observed occurs after the 144 update, I'll post it here.
@Kiki
The update to 144.0 has happened.
No dark screen problem now. Just the usual bright grey.
See the screenshot below for the state of the Google home page screen now.