I apologize for the number of technical questions I seem to be asking (and probably have yet to ask), but as I mentioned in the iPod thread, our computer crashed so we’re trying to get everything set up again.
Since we’re basically starting over, my dad decided it’d be neat to try out this newfangled Firefox all the kids are talking about these days. Actually, he decided after I told him what I had heard about it, with the advantages over IE and all. We’ve run into a bit of a pickle, though. It was working perfectly fine on Thursday and Friday, but today, it’s acting rather wonky. When we open the browser, it’s opening on a blank tab, even though we have a default home page set. Also, whenever we type, say “www.facebook.com” or “www.youtube.com” in the address bar, it always stays that way, no matter where we navigate on that site. In other words, even though we’re watching a specific YouTube video, the address bar still says “www.youtube.com” rather than “www.youtube.com/84q4hfakjd984ur2398jfiefj” or whatever the address is. It’s the same for every site, in fact. When i’m on the SDMB, the address bar is still stuck as “www.straightdope.com,” even though the header of the window says “Straight Dope Message Board - Post New Thread” etc.
Another weird thing is nothing is being added to our history, even though we are not on private browsing, nor have we disabled the history for any reason. Firefox just isn’t remembering anything. Tied to that (I believe) is the loss in functionality of some of our browser toolbar - specifically, the back/forward buttons, the “stop” button, and the “refresh” button. They are greyed out and unclickable, no matter what site we navigate to.
Has this happened to anyone before? Is there a setting or something we’ve accidentally enabled/disabled?
Also, we are running Windows XP, if that makes a difference.
I am not certain what might be going on, but I would start by doing the following:
[ul]
[li]Do a complete spyware and virus scan.[/li][li]I would consider doing a complete uninstall of FF and then doing a reinstall. [/li][li]After you do a reinstall, before you do anything else, install these add-ons: Ad Block Plus and No-Script.[/li][/ul]
What this should do is get rid of any spyware, scumware and viruses that may have crept onto the PC and also reset FF to its defaults. Adblock plus and No-Script will keep the spyware and scumware from autoinstalling on the PC.
Have you installed any extensions? I know there is an extension that trims unnecessarily long URLs. Maybe that somehow got installed. Go to Tools>Add Ons to check.
Then go Tools>Options>Main Tag and reset the home page and see if it fouls things up again.
If you are uninstalling/reinstalling, after the uninstall do a search for all Mozilla files and folders and delete them, otherwise after reinstalling you may get the same problems occurring.
That’s good advice. If you simply uninstall the next time you install Firefox it will use the Profile left from your previous install and you’ll be back to square one.
Actually I seem to remember that Firefox asks you during the uninstall process whether you want to delete your Profile, etc. If so just say yes and you’ll be all set for a clean install next time.
BTW it’s worth the effort. Firefox is still the best browser out there, constantly updated and improved upon by the team at Mozilla.
An easy way to see whether it’s your profile causing the problem is to follow these instructions to create a new profile using the Profile Manager. This will do essentially what the other folks in here are talking about, but it’s a little tidier than trying to find the files yourself. If the new profile works out, you can delete the old one using the same Manager.
Is this a new PC, or the same one that crashed? Is it possible you have a hardware problem?
Thanks all! I reinstalled Firefox, and all is well.