1666651 - Search engine settings got reset to "default" after upgrading from 81 to 82

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1538668

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

As reported in bug 1538668 the first thing I saw today that changed after restarting Firefox Dev Edition - upgrading from 81 to 82 - was that a "@google" pin appeared at the beginning of the top sites list when opening a new tab.

Checking my Preferences > Search

• Google was suddenly the default search engine => had been DDG
• I think I had different engines in that list, but can't recall 100%

Lastly, this is actually more a sumo question, I can't seem to find the setting to add other engines into the "One-Click Search Engines" list anymore!? Found it again ... "Page actions" while on the new engines site.

Comment 1

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

There are two possible bugs being reported here:

• First is the dupe after bug 1538668, which causes @google to be added as a pinned search tile when the default search engine is switched from google to ddg.
• Second would be that on upgrade path the ddg gets defaulted to google.

For the first issue, when you switch from google to ddg, automatically an @google pinned search shortcut is added to the topsites, I'm guessing this might be intended and tracked in bug 1538668.

For the second issue, that is a bit more interesting, I've tried to reproduce the update path from 81.0b9 devedition to 82.0b2 devediton (windows10 and mac 10.13.6) and I didn't get my default engine switched from ddg to google.

@Albert, could you please list here if you are using a localized build and on which region you are currently set (about:config and list the value for browser.search.region).

@Mark might have an idea how to get a postfact glimpse of what happened with your upgrade that caused default search engine to be switched from ddg to google.

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Albert, please could you attach a copy of the Help -> Troubleshooting Information report? I'm particularly interested to see if you have a different language installed to what your current one is.

Also, do you happen to have backups from before the upgrade?

Comment 3

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

Attachment: bug-1666651-about_support.txt

do you happen to have backups from before the upgrade?

Unfortunately not :/

about:config > browser.search.region

AU

about:support

see attachment

Comment 4

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

@Adrian

when you switch from google to ddg, automatically an @google pinned search shortcut is added to the topsites, I'm guessing this might be intended and tracked

1. I have never seen this before (and I use several FF versions on several machines for decades)
2. how can this be intended? By switching, the user shows intent to not use Google. Why would Firefox undermine this by adding Google prominently?
3. It doesn't seem to be tracked really - its open, unconfirmed and barely touched in 2 years.

Comment 5

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

For the reason the default engine switched, I don't know, unfortunately without more information that isn't available we're not going to be able to do much there.

I'm therefore going to dupe this to bug 1538668 as that is the main issue reported.

(In reply to Albert Scheiner [:alberts] from comment #4)

3. It doesn't seem to be tracked really - its open, unconfirmed and barely touched in 2 years.

Unfortunately bugs can get lost as we have a lot to maintain, I've moved it to a better place, and put it back in the triage queue.

Comment 6

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

Thanks for taking a look Mark!