Search engine hijacked, add-on page is empty
My search engine, set to be Google in Settings, is Yahoo every time I try to search. I went to your "solutions" page and followed all instructions, to no avail. When I open "add-ons" I get nothing but a blank page. I deleted and reinstalled Firefox, and that did nothing either. I've been forced to change to Chrome as my default browser, and there I can use Google. Please help!
Mafitar da aka zaɓa
You can try to rename search.json.mozlz4 in the profile folder to searchOLD.json.mozlz4 to see if that has effect. Keep a backup copy in case Standard8 wants to look at this file.
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Folder/Directory:
Windows: Open Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
All Replies (11)
Sorry, in my enthusiasm I forgot
Do you still have the add-ons installed (even if they are disabled)? Regular search settings cannot be responsible for the behavior you were experiencing.
An gyara daga Andreas Wagner
Do you possibly have this search.json.mozlz4 file in a Time Machine backup ?
Wouldn’t the “OLD” file be the one you’re looking for?
Yes, if you renamed the file to searchOLD.json.mozlz4 then that is sufficient. I leave it to the developers that posted above about how to get this file because it is compressed and you would need to decompress it to host it somewhere, so sending the file via email would be a better option to get this file to the devs.
Happy to send that file by email to whomever. Just let me know.
I've just privately messaged you my email address.
just sent it.
Y'all helped a lot. I have now re-enabled the safe extensions, and removed two suspect extensions that I never installed but that I believe were responsible for the hi-jacking. Really appreciate the help.
It's unfortunate you uninstalled the add-ons before collecting their IDs. We could have examined and blocked them and similar ones for all affected users.
Before uninstalling (removing) them I hit "report" and sent Firefox a complete rundown of what happened. So someone in Firefox got that report.