Hi Bob, could you try using the "Restore Defaults" button on the Customize page to put the main toolbar controls back in their starting positions? Hopefully then you can re-customize and keep the search bar.

See: Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars

Any luck?

I had already tried "Restore Defaults" button, that did not bring back the search window. I can get the search window if I start in safe mode. All of my add-ons are disabled.

By search window do you mean Firefox's search bar on the main toolbar, or a different toolbar/page/box?

Could you share with us your current list of enabled and disabled extensions? The simplest way is to view the full list on the troubleshooting information page. Either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter/Return

Then scroll down to Extensions and just below that heading, select the table with your mouse and copy it (either Ctrl+c or right-click > Copy), then paste it into a reply (either Ctrl+v or right-click > Paste). It will look a bit messy, but we're used to it. Thanks.

Yes the search bar on the main toolbar. Extensions Google Toolbar for Firefox 7.1.20110512W false {3112ca9c-de6d-4884-a869-9855de68056c} googlebar 0.9.20.05 false {6b6601f1-361e-4b9f-bb6d-f8305000e4f6} Menu Wizard 5.05 false s3menu@wizard

Thank you.

Hi Bob, do you think you ever would have created a file named userChrome.css, which is an optional settings file (disabled in Firefox's Safe Mode) to restyle Firefox's user interface? It's unlikely that Firefox 49 would suddenly be processing the file differently, but I suppose anything is possible...

Sometimes the file that stores certain toolbar layout information becomes corrupted. Since it is difficult to edit, we suggesting renaming the file as a way to rule this out as the culprit. Here's how:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
• (menu bar) File > Exit

Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename xulstore.json to something like xulstore.old. If you see a file named localstore.rdf, rename that one to localstore.old.

Start Firefox back up again. This doesn't change the controls selected for the main toolbar, but may restore to default sizing the amount of space used by the address bar and search bar.

Thanks, but that had no apparent effect except that the menu bar is now missing also.

The menu bar is easy to bring back... you can use one of these methods to show the toolbar list and select it there:

• right-click a blank spot on the tab bar (or the "+" button)
• tap the Alt key to activate the classic menu bar > View > Toolbars
• in Customize mode > Show/Hide Toolbars (see: Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars)

To turn on the Menu Bar, Bookmarks Toolbar, or other bars, click it on the list.

But to return to the search bar:

Is your main toolbar overflowing due to a large number of buttons? There usually would be a button near the right end with an icon similar to >> in that case.

If the extensions that you disabled are not important, could you go ahead and remove them? If there isn't a Remove button on the Add-ons page, it was installed in a shared folder and if there isn't an obvious entry for it in the Windows Control Panel, Uninstall a Program, we'll have to describe how to track it down.

You can view, disable, and often remove unwanted or unknown extensions on the Add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a (Mac: Command+Shift+a)
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Extensions. Then cast a critical eye over the list on the right side. All extensions are optional. If in doubt, disable.

Often a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Any improvement?

Thanks, I have 9 buttons. I can spread Firefox out over 2 monitors so it's really wide and that doesn't help. There is no >>. I removed 2 disabled add-ons (is add-on the same as extension?) that were incompatible with no effect. The 3rd add-on (currently disabled) was added recently, after the problem was observed, so it is not the cause of the problem.

Okay, this is a little hard to explain, but it will help clarify whether the search bar is anywhere on your toolbars.

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste UIC and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Right-click the browser.uiCustomization.state preference and choose Copy Value

(4) Launch a new Scratchpad using either:

"3-bar" menu button > Developer > Scratchpad (menu bar) Tools > Web Developer > Scratchpad

(5) Delete the contents of the scratchpad and paste the value of the above preference (right-click > Paste, or Ctrl+v)

(6) Click the "Pretty Print" button on the top line of the Scratchpad to improve the readability of the text

(7) Call up the Find bar from the Edit menu or by pressing Ctrl+f

(8) Type or paste search-con and press Enter to submit that. Is 'search-container' anywhere in the data? If so, if you scroll up, what bar is it under? Normally, it would be under 'nav-bar'.

I had to outwit Scratchpad to paste the data as every time I tried to paste it gave me a banner that warned about scams instead of actually pasting. Yes there is a search-container and it is under nav-bar.

Let's check for a userChrome.css file:

Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

In your profile folder, look for a chrome folder. If you find one, double-click into that and look for a file named userChrome.css which could contain rules modifying Firefox's toolbar area. Anything like that?

Thank you, found and removed this from userChrome.css to solve the problem:

1. search-container

{ display: none !important; }

One mystery solved! Second mystery: how did that get there? If you did not create/install that file, maybe a bad add-on or some malware did it to force you to use their search bar??

I used to use Google Toolbar. Google stopped supporting new verions of Firefox, I guess when they invented their own browser. It may be that the entry in userChrome eliminated duplicate search bars at some point in time. For whatever reason it didn't cause any problem until our IT dept updated me to version 49.