Address bar problems with Firefox on Android phone

January 7, 2018 12:36 AM

What happened to my address bar in Firefox on my Android phone?

Since the last update, the address bar on Firefox on my phone has been giving me problems. It displays the address of the site I'm visiting and two brand new buttons: a microphone icon I can tap to access Google voice input and a strange new icon that looks like an X with a dot in the north and south quarters which does nothing when I touch it. Furthermore, the address field is unresponsive to touch (no cursor and no keyboard comes up) and there's no way for me to switch tabs. How do I get functionality back? I don't really want to switch browsers.

I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Android version 4.4.2.

posted by dazed_one to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Hm... I don't see an icon matching that description on my phone in Firefox, however there is one that looks like a stylized QR code that launches a barcode/QR code scanner. Touching the address portion of the address bar brings up the keyboard for me, and I can access tabs by pressing the button of the square with a number on it. I'm on Android 7.x with Firefox 57.0.4.

Perhaps if you took a screenshot of what you're seeing that'd be more helpful? For most android devices, you can get a screenshot by holding down the power button and then pressing the home button briefly. If you can't do that, can you check what version of Firefox you have installed? You should be able to check this by going into Firefox's settings and choosing the "About Firefox" option. Failing that, does it look like the screenshots in the Google Play listing?
posted by Aleyn at 8:55 PM on January 7, 2018

I ended up reinstalling Firefox and the weird address bar was no longer there.

FWIW, it was Firefox 57.0.4.
posted by dazed_one at 12:22 PM on January 10, 2018