Is the home page with the blank search box on google.com or is it the about:home start page? (Or is it some other page?)

My home page is Google.co.nz (I live in New Zealand) I used to be able to go back to the home page using the back button and my search request was still in the search box as I had typed it. Now it is always blank as it gets wiped out and I have to retype it all back in. Really annoying.

I can't replicate the problem. When I visit a result and use Back, I get the results list again. If I go back again, my original query is in the box in the center of the page.

Do you use any Google-related add-ons that might not be fully compatible with the latest releases of Firefox?

Thanks for trying. The problem started a few weeks ago with FF4. I'm beginning to wonder if I have a corrupt Win7 instalation now.

Are you sure its not doing the same on your machine? I just loaded an Acronis image from April this year with FF 4 and it does the same. i.e. when I go back from a search, the search bar where I type the words is blank

I was referring to the search box in Google's page. I also use the search box to the right of the address box up on the navigation toolbar. I never search from the address area itself. Is that where it is getting blanked out?

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It's probably not a problem with Windows. More likely you have an add-on that is causing the problem. You can restart in Firefox's Safe Mode to test that theory.

First, I recommend backing up your Firefox settings in case something goes wrong. See Backing up your information. (You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder.)

Next, this article describes how to start in Safe Mode from various versions of Firefox: Safe Mode.

If that works as expected/intended/designed, then one of your add-ons likely is the problem.