Type about:customizing<enter> in the address bar. Look for Show / Hide Toolbars at the bottom left.

There is also a Restore Defaults button at the bottom middle.

Thanks so much for the help!

I ultimately found the search bar and ended up needing to drag-and-drop it back up where it belonged.

Glad to help. Safe Surfing.

Tried the about:customizing thing and got this: The address isn’t valid.

Any suggestions, please. After a restart the search bar comes back but then it will disappear and the location bar pretty much eats up the entire top bar.

relem All about: pages are internal with Firefox.

Let’s do a full clean re-install; Download Firefox For All languages And Systems {web link} Save the file. Then Close Firefox.

Using your file browser, open the Programs Folder on your computer.

Windows: C:\Program Files C:\Program Files (x86) Mac: Open the "Applications" folder.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-download-and-install-firefox-mac Linux: Check your user manual. If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder Firefox in your home directory.

Do Not remove the profiles folder.

Look for, and rename any Mozilla or Firefox program folders by adding .old to them. Do not rename the Mozilla Thunderbird folder if there is one.

After rebooting the computer, run a registry scanner if you have one. Then run the installer. If all goes well, remove the OLD folders when you are done.

If there is a problem, start your Computer in safe mode and try again.

Starting The Computer In Safe Mode;
Free Online Encyclopedia

Offered solutions aren't helpful because the entire search/address bar is missing. When I try to restore defaults, the "customize" toolbar page offers no "done" button. Any changes I make are not automatically saved when I "exit" customization. I'm able to reach this site only by using Chrome. May be the final straw to push me over, but I would like to save recent bookmarked links. Help?

Note that about:customizing is no longer present in current Firefox 47+ releases.

Hi deborahg

The toolbar customization is stored in the browser.uiCustomization.state pref, so you seem to have a problem with the prefs if changes are lost.

You can try to reset browser.uiCustomization.state via the right-click context menu to the default value and redo all customizations. You may want to safe the current value of the pref that stores customization data in JSON format.

You can check for problems with preferences.

Delete possible user.js and numbered prefs-##.js files and rename/remove the prefs.js file to reset all prefs to the default value including prefs set via user.js and prefs that are no longer supported in current Firefox releases.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/preferences_not_saved
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Resetting_preferences

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

• Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Directory:
  Windows: Show Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

I truly appreciate the help, but

1. There is no search or address bar into which I can type words like "about:settings." There are no menu bars from which I can select "troubleshooting information." Both have disappeared.

2. When I use spotlight or command F to try to find any version of the words being offered - anything with "pref" in the name, for example - nothing relevant comes.

3. I search the library, and its preferences folders, and find nothing with browser or config in the name.

4. I would pay somebody to walk me through a fix over the phone.

Hi deborahg,

I am definitely NOT an expert but was just wondering:

  1. Do you have your menu box? If you do...
  2. What shows when you hit the word "customization?" Do you see 
      anything relating to 'toolbars?"  

Can you copy and paste your recent bookmark links somewhere? If so, you might try to completely uninstall Firefox, and empty your cache, too, then do a fresh install of Firefox from the Mozilla download page. Maybe that would bring back the missing sections.

...Just some ideas...(which you've probably tried already) :)

Good luck!

Spud88

Nope. No search/address bar, no menu logo on the upper right, nada.

All I have left are my bookmarked folders across the top.

I have my office Firefox synced to my home computer, the computer with the problem. My plan now is to download the office bookmarks, unsync the computers, then wipe out home Firefox.

However, I did download a new copy of Firefox yesterday (Firefox2, separate from the original app), and when I launched it, same thing. No search bar, no menu bar.

So I wonder a new copy will do any good?

Well, now fixed. Brought the laptop to work, where the techs remoted in. For some reason when THEY accessed the View/Toolbar nav point, a "navigation bar" option showed up. I swear to god it didn't until now.

But thanks for the help, everyone.

Hi deborahg

Note that in current releases it is not possible to hide the Navigation Toolbar, so you must have an extension that adds this feature to your Firefox installation. An extension that includes this feature is the Classic Theme Restorer extension,

Huh, that's a downside, isn't it? Thanks for the heads up.

Hi deborahg,

Sorry you don't know the why/how of it, but glad you got it back!

Spud88