1946156 - Firefox 135.0 Broken (Searching, Drop-Downs, and Homepage Affected)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P1)

Description

[jayhawk]

Attachment: Left: r-click menu for Google Chat - Works as intended, Middle: r-click menu for Google.com - Does not work, Right: Homepage and searching error

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:135.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/135.0

Steps to reproduce:

My browser was automatically updated to Firefox 135.0 (64-bit).

I am using the Firefox plug-ins Adblock Plus, NoScript, and uBlock Origin.

OS Specifications:
Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 24H2
Installed on ‎12/‎7/‎2024
OS build 26100.3037
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.48.0

Actual results:

Immediately upon updating:

• Firefox is unable to search on the internet. Using the top bar, I am still able to reach websites by putting in their exact URL, but there are no search suggestions other than autocomplete.
  NOTE: I am still able to search directly through Google's website.

• The Google search bar on the Firefox home page no longer displays correctly and also does not search. A cursor appears in the search bar, but nothing displays as you type.
  NOTE: I am still able to search directly through Google's website.

• The right-click drop down menu has changed drastically in appearance, and does not consistently function correctly. When tested with the Google Chat logo with embedded link, Firefox functioned normally. However, when tested with the Google logo with embedded link, the only options that functioned correctly were those for my plugins. In both cases, however, the link can be followed by directly clicking on it.
  NOTE: The above seems to hold true for all links I have encountered.

The attached image shows examples of the above:

Left: Right-click menu for Google Chat - Works as intended (I think)
Middle: Right-click menu for Google.com - Does not work
Right: Homepage and searching error (I was typing in the top bar in the screenshot)

Expected results:

• Searching should have worked properly

• Home should have displayed properly

• The right-click menu should have functioned normally.

Comment 1

[jayhawk]

NOTE: The problem persists upon rebooting the browser, device, and hard rebooting the device.

Comment 2

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Search' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 3

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Please can you try a few things to help us narrow this down?

Firstly, just after starting Firefox, go to Tools -> Browser Tools -> Browser Console and see if there are any error messages on there. Especially relating to search service or search settings.

Secondly, find where your profile is, then shutdown Firefox. In the profile, move the search.json.mozlz4 file somewhere else out of the profile. Then startup Firefox again - does that restore the functionality?

If so, would you mind attaching or sending us the search.json.mozlz4 file for analysis? It contains only the details about the search engines you had installed and their settings.

Comment 4

[jayhawk]

Hello,

There were several errors in the console. There were three which included the word "search." Those were:

    - SearchService: #init: failure initializing search: RangeError: too many function arguments
#migrateTo12 resource://gre/modules/SearchSettings.sys.mjs:840
SearchService.sys.mjs:1396:23
#init resource://gre/modules/SearchService.sys.mjs:1396
    - Error: SearchService failed while it was initializing. SearchService.sys.mjs:1290:13
#ensureInitialized resource://gre/modules/SearchService.sys.mjs:1290
get defaultEngine resource://gre/modules/SearchService.sys.mjs:199
getShortHostnameForCurrentSearch resource://activity-stream/lib/TopSitesFeed.sys.mjs:144
shouldFilterSearchTile resource://activity-stream/lib/TopSitesFeed.sys.mjs:1059
getLinksWithDefaults resource://activity-stream/lib/TopSitesFeed.sys.mjs:1278
InterpretGeneratorResume self-hosted:1413
AsyncFunctionNext self-hosted:800
    - NS_ERROR_XPC_JAVASCRIPT_ERROR_WITH_DETAILS: [JavaScript Error: "SearchService failed while it was initializing." {file: 
"resource://gre/modules/SearchService.sys.mjs" line: 1290}]'[JavaScript Error: "SearchService failed while it was initializing." {file: 
"resource://gre/modules/SearchService.sys.mjs" line: 1290}]' when calling method: [nsISearchService::defaultEngine] TopSitesFeed.sys.mjs:144

There were also a number of RangeError notifs in addition to these, along with an error saying:

    get activeTab chrome://browser/content/parent/ext-browser.js:1148
    candidates chrome://extensions/content/parent/ext-tabs-base.js:2111
    next self-hosted:1334
    query chrome://extensions/content/parent/ext-tabs-base.js:2133
    next self-hosted:1334
    from self-hosted:533
    query chrome://browser/content/parent/ext-tabs.js:1016
    result resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:1228
    withCallContextData resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:671
    result resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:1227
    withPendingBrowser resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:681
    result resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:1226
    callAndLog resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:1177
    recvAPICall resource://gre/modules/ExtensionParent.sys.mjs:1225
    AsyncFunctionNext self-hosted:800

This was all found in the parent process console.

Upon the removal of the search.json.mozlz4 and the restarting of Firefox, functionality seems to be restored. Unfortunately, I cannot find how to attach a file to this comment.

Comment 5

[jayhawk]

Attachment: search.json.mozlz4

Never mind. I found it. Thank you for your patience!

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Thank you for the additional data, we now understand where the problem lies.

Sometime previously, you'd installed a search engine for a forum that no longer exists. The search engine had a very large (800kB) image for its icon. In 135, we are performing some migration on the icons and assessing their size on the screen. Unfortunately that code is being tripped up by the large size of the icon.

In your case, that search engine is the only additional engine you had installed - so having removed the file, you don't need to re-install any other search engines and you're safe to continue. We'll work on a fix to prevent this happening in future.

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: Adding to the tracking radar for awareness/observation, since this can break users on updating to 135. We think the impact will be small - most OpenSearch engines I've seen don't have large icons included within them.

We have telemetry for the amount of users with OpenSearch engines installed, and telemetry for users hitting issues with the search service failing to initialise. So far the telemetry hasn't shown any spikes, but we'll continue to watch.

For workarounds, users can either refresh Firefox, or remove the search.json.mozlz4 from the profile to fix the issue.

Comment 7

[Moritz Beier [:mbeier]]

Attachment: Bug 1946156 - Ensure the icons don't exceed the maximum size in the migration to search settings v12. r?standard8

Comment 8

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/9aca4f127dbf
Ensure the icons don't exceed the maximum size in the migration to search settings v12. r=Standard8

Comment 9

[amarc]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/9aca4f127dbf

Comment 10

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The patch landed in nightly and beta is affected.
:mbeier, is this bug important enough to require an uplift?

• If yes, please nominate the patch for beta approval.
• If no, please set status-firefox136 to wontfix.

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 11

[Moritz Beier [:mbeier]]

Attachment: Bug 1946156 - Ensure the icons don't exceed the maximum size in the migration to search settings v12. r?standard8

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D237195

Comment 12

[Phabricator Automation]

beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: Users with opensearch engines that have very large icons directly in the opensearch description xml as data urls will be unable to search using the urlbar and some context menus will be broken.
• Code covered by automated testing: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly: no
• Needs manual QE test: yes
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: Copy the search.json.mozlz4 attached to Bug 1946156 into the profile folder. Start Firefox. Searching via the urlbar should work as expected.
• Risk associated with taking this patch: low
• Explanation of risk level: Changes are covered by automated tests and wrapped in a try-catch.
• String changes made/needed: no
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 13

[Catalin Sasca, Desktop Test Engineering [:csasca]]

Reproduced the issue on Firefox 137.0a1 (2025-02-05) by using the search.json provided on macOS 15.3.

Searching via urlbar works as expected on Firefox 137.0a1 (2025-02-10). Tests were performed on macOS 15.3, Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows 11.

Will verify it on 136 and 135 too as soon as the fix will be available for them.

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/b374a0abc697

Comment 15

[Catalin Sasca, Desktop Test Engineering [:csasca]]

Verified that searching via urlbar works as expected on Firefox 136.0b5 (treeherder build). Tests were performed on macOS 15.3.1, Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows 11.

Comment 16

[Moritz Beier [:mbeier]]

Attachment: Bug 1946156 - Ensure the icons don't exceed the maximum size in the migration to search settings v12. r?standard8

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D237195

Comment 17

[Phabricator Automation]

release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: Users with opensearch engines that have very large icons directly in the opensearch description xml as data urls will be unable to search using the urlbar and some context menus will be broken.
• Code covered by automated testing: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly: yes
• Needs manual QE test: no
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: Copy the search.json.mozlz4 attached to Bug 1946156 into the profile folder. Start Firefox. Searching via the urlbar should work as expected.
• Risk associated with taking this patch: low
• Explanation of risk level: Changes are covered by automated tests and wrapped in a try-catch. They have also been in nightly and beta for a few days.
• String changes made/needed: no
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 18

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/rev/36cc1d2b33d5

Comment 19

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Added to the 135.0.1 relnotes.

Fixed broken search functionality when updating to Firefox 135 with a custom search engine with an overly-large icon installed.

Comment 21

[Catalin Sasca, Desktop Test Engineering [:csasca]]

Verified that the issue is fixed on Firefox 135.0.1 as well. Tests were performed on macOS 15.3.1, Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04.