Gray bar below the status bar

Show content customized for:

Mozilla is not planning any further security and stability updates for Firefox 2, and recommends that you upgrade to Firefox 3 as soon as possible. It's free, and your settings and bookmarks will be preserved.

Also, the Phishing Protection service will no longer be available for Firefox 2 users. Firefox 3 offers a free Phishing and Malware Protection service, which will continue to protect you from online scams and attacks.
After updating Firefox or installing a new extension, you may observe that a thick gray bar appears at the bottom of the Firefox window below the status bar. This bar may contain red text.

The appearance of the gray bar indicates a problem with the Firefox user interface. This article describes the potential sources of the problem and what you can do to fix it.

{content label=suggestFx3}

Table Of Contents

Faulty extension

One of the extensions that you have installed in Firefox may be causing the problem. The first step to resolving the problem is to check for updates to your extensions:

  1. In the menu at the top of the Firefox window, select Tools menu and then choose Add-ons. The Add-ons dialog appears.
  2. Click the Extensions panel. The list of installed extensions is displayed.
  3. To check for updates to each installed extension, click Find Updates.
  4. If updates are found, install these updates by clicking Install Updates.
  5. When installation is complete, click Restart Firefox.
  6. When Firefox restarts, your extensions have been updated. The gray bar may have disappeared.

List of faulty extensions

Even if your extensions are updated and you still see the gray bar, one or more of your extensions may be causing the problem. The following list identifies some of the extensions that are known to cause this problem:

  • Linky
  • FoxyTunes 2.9.5

Additionally, the gray bar may contain text identifying the faulty extension. In the above screenshot, the id attribute indicates that the gray bar is caused by the Stylish extension (Note that the Stylish extension is used for example purposes only. It is not known to cause this problem.).

Disabling faulty extensions

If you use any of known problematic extensions or wish to test individual extensions, you can disable them to see if problem goes away:

  1. In the menu at the top of the Firefox window, select the Tools menu and then select Add-ons. The Add-ons dialog appears.
  2. Click the Extensions panel. The list of installed extensions is displayed.
  3. Click the name of the extension you wish to disable.
  4. To disable the selected extension, click Disable.
  5. From the menu at the top of the Firefox windowbar, select FileFirefox and then select the ExitQuit FirefoxQuit menu item.
  6. Restart Firefox. Now that these extensions have been disabled, the gray bar may be gone.
  7. If the problem persists, you should repeat the above process with each extension. If the gray bar disappears, the extension that you most recently disabled is the source of the issue.

Note: Do not re-enable any extensions until you have disabled all extensions one-by-one. Multiple extensions may be causing the problem.

Other faulty software

If disabling extensions didn't resolve your problem, the problem may be in other software that affects Firefox. Software known to cause this problem for some users includes:

If you use any of the above software, disable or uninstall it. For more information, consult the documentation that came with the software product.

Windows:

MyWebSearch Toolbar

A form of spyware called "MyWebSearch Toolbar" or "Ask.com Toolbar" can also cause this problem.

  1. From the menu at the top of the Firefox window, select File and then select the Exit menu item.
  2. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer.
  3. Delete the following files (if they exist)
    • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\m#ffxtbr.manifest (where # is any number)
    • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\a2ffxtbr.manifest
    • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\s4fftxt.manifest
    • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\s4ffxtbr.manifest

Faulty Firefox

This problem can also be caused if one of Firefox's own files has become corrupted. In this case, please download and re-install Firefox to the same location as it is currently in. (Don't worry, installing Firefox over itself will not result in you losing any bookmarks, history, or any of your other important data.) Please see the Installing Firefox article on how to do this.




Based on information from Gray bar below status bar (mozillaZine KB)


Did this article solve a problem you had with Firefox?

Was this article easy to understand?



Page last modified on Tuesday 30 of December, 2008 16:00:54 PST.
Contributors to this page: Chris_Ilias , RenegadeX , Cww , stevee , AliceWyman , Drew_ , skulvis , admin and np .
- This is a support/troubleshooting article -