Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.

(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)

• On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
• On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
• On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
• Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"

If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.

To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.

Please report back soon.

First, thank you for posting a reply. I really don't think you read my message though. I haven't used Firefox for the past 3-4 years. It's a fresh installation, with no users profiles and obviously no extensions / add-ons.

If you try exactly the steps I've mentioned, you'll get the same error.

I'm sorry that you have already tried the above.

Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration. Since this feature was added to Firefox, it has gradually improved, but there still are a few glitches.

You might need to restart Firefox in order for this to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).

Then perform these steps:

• Click the orange Firefox button at the top left, then select the "Options" button, or, if there is no Firefox button at the top, go to Tools > Options.
• In the Firefox options window click the Advanced tab, then select "General".
• In the settings list, you should find the Use hardware acceleration when available checkbox. Uncheck this checkbox.
• Now, restart Firefox and see if the problems persist.

Additionally, please check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in the following Knowledge base articles:

• Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems

• Upgrade your graphics drivers to use hardware acceleration and WebGL

Did this fix your problems? Please report back soon.

Tools, Options on a Mac. Meh, don’t think so.

FF25 clean install on box fresh Mac running Mavericks.

No add-ons, acceleration off.

Search bar does not work.

In order to be able to find the correct solution to your problem, we require some more non-personal information from you. Please do the following:

• Click the Firefox button at the top left, then click the Help menu and select Troubleshooting Information from the submenu. If you don't have a Firefox button, click the Help menu at the top and select Troubleshooting Information from the menu.

Now, a new tab containing your troubleshooting information should open.

• At the top of the page, you should see a button that says "Copy text to clipboard". Click it.
• Now, go back to your forum post and click inside the reply box. Press Ctrl+V to paste all the information you copied into the forum post.

If you need further information about the Troubleshooting information page, please read the article Use the Troubleshooting Information page to help fix Firefox issues.

Thanks in advance for your help!

OPENDNS.

Got rid. Now every thing works fine.

Found answer here http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/hroberts/2008/09/07/opendns-and-firefox-search/

Cheers.

Hi wandermoto, the search=>DNS_query=>Google failover should work with OpenDNS (at least ours does at the office). I wonder whether a redirect block or some other filter might be affecting yours. Anyway, I'm glad you found a DNS provider that works for you.

OPENDNS are my preferred DNS solution so I am very keen to get this to work. Its just not happening on FF25 and the Mac for now. Reproduced on 2 other new machines and also once recently upgraded to mavericks. Different ISPs.

Maybe someone will flag it up to Apple on their forums if it's specific to Mavericks. Possibly a default settings change?

Can you attach a screenshot?

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot.

Are all default search engines still installed if you check that in the searchplugins folder in the Firefox installation folder?

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installation_directory

Try to delete the search.json file and possible search-metadata.json and search.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder to reset the search engines to the default.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

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.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Unable_to_search_or_add_new_engines

Search on Chrome and Safari works just fine. Search on Firefox doesn't work (and it's ridiculously easy to reproduce, just follow steps I mentioned on a fresh install).

The only workaround that works: change the DNS servers.

What would solve the issue would be fixing FF so that one word searches behave exactly as 2+ word searches, but that's just my opinion.