Works for me in Firefox 55 and 56 to have the cursor in the location/address bar if I use File > New Private Window.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

• switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Appearance
• do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems

cor-el said

Works for me in Firefox 55 and 56 to have the cursor in the location/address bar if I use File > New Private Window. Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

• switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Appearance
• do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-extensions-themes-to-fix-problems

If you would please reread my question, I didn't say that it didn't work from the file menu. I said it didn't work when I right click the pinned icon on my taskbar. Thanks.

Edit to add that I don't use Firefox in any other mode than private so when I go to the taskbar to start Firefox in a private window, the cursor is not in the address bar.

There must be special code that moves the focus to the address bar when you call New Private Window from inside Firefox. Neither New Window nor the "jump list" methods do that (focus is placed in the page).

I can't test future versions at the moment to see if this already is expected to change. That would be worth doing before filing a bug.

Edit: Are you saying that you use automatic private browsing, so new private windows have your home page instead of the purple welcome page?

No, I'm not using automatic anything. I simply launch Firefox by right clicking the pinned icon and choose "New private window", which opens the purple private browsing page. No home page.

Firefox has acted this way forever. It just finally annoyed me enough to post here because nobody else has. I doubt any newer version fixes it because I don't see it mentioned in any forums. Thanks.

Well, inconsistencies definitely are annoying. You could file a bug requesting that the behavior be changed and see whether anyone jumps on it. However, people are so busy with all the Firefox 57 changes that I don't think you can expect it to get serious attention in 2017. Maybe in 2018?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi