Firefox 94 Home Screen shortcut icons

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Previous versions of Firefox switched the Home Screen shortcut boxes (sites you save or visit) from showing a mix of site icons and screen capture thumbnails to just icons. The method to switch back from icons to thumbnails was to go to “about:configure”; type “newNew”; Double-click the browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.newNewtabExperience.enabled preference to switch the value from true to false.

That worked for me in versions 89 ~ 93. But that does not work for version 94. Does anyone know how to switch back from bland, generic icons to specific thumbnails?

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The page gear thing should have a dropdown that may fix that.

Try going into your profile and deleting the places.js folder.  You have to do this with FF closed.  It will be recreated next time you open FF.

Also, try deleting the startup cache :Menu>Help> More troubleshooting information>on top to the right.  This has fixed rough updates for me.

Be sure favicons haven’t been disabled in about:config.

You could try some queries here:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recover-user-data-missing-after-firefox-update#search

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DKThompson

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Sally, I think you meant – prefs.js (stores settings) – Vs – places.js (not one I see) – (places.sqlite typical topic)

I enjoyed multi Appearance css Mods in FF BUT 94 has butchered most of them as follows:

Top Sites thumbnails, as described, have such a Big white border around the thumbnail that it renders the images useless;

Active Tabs = Gold / Inactive = Navy are Now Opaque;

Color Borders around URL and Search Bars are gone;

Back-Fwd-Refresh-Home buttons Color is gone;

Old Style Gold Bookmark Folders are Gone

Little hope for fixes …. but maybe a miracle?

 

 

W10 Pro 22H2 / Hm-Stdnt Ofce '16 C2R / Macrium Pd vX / GP=2 + FtrU=Semi-Annual + Feature Defer = 1 + QU = 0

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DKThompson

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Once again, “New and improved” takes its toll, and further into minimalism.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DKThompson

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I meant places but you are correct, it’s places.sqlite.

If you remove prefs.js, I’m pretty sure all your about:config changes will go back to default, along with Settings (was Options.)

Those are things I’ve had some luck with but I disable, delete, change a large number of about:config items.  If I want to return someplace regularly, I use bookmarks or shortcuts put in a FF desktop folder.  My home page and new tab page are DDG, I use a userChrome.css file to make the top bars much smaller, lots of stuff.

Also, I’m on 91ESR.  I went to ESR a few years ago after the Release versions were repeatedly butchered by updates resulting in issues similar to yours.  It’s much smoother

Sorry, I don’t have a definitive answer.  You could reinstall FF, a pain I know or go back to an earlier version.  JMO but ESR went from 78 to 91 and will stay at 91 for a year or something so using a slightly older Release version shouldn’t be a security issue.  Here they all are, pick the one that worked!:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

If you reinstall, I’d look for anything Mozilla or Firefox with Explorer search and delete it (be smart) because FF saves backups so your new installation is similar to the old one.

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DKThompson

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Would dearly appreciate an answer to this issue which involves a setting rather than deletions which risk breaking my Firefox installation. Agree, this “change” was most annoying. Did some changes to Proton with user.Chrome css which were suggested on this site and the old icons returned. 94.0.1 has removed them. 🙁

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DKThompson

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anonymous wrote:

94.0.1 has removed them.

FF 94.0.1 was only supposed to have contained one fix.  I’m now wondering what else they may have removed!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DKThompson

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Charlie wrote:

anonymous wrote:

94.0.1 has removed them.

FF 94.0.1 was only supposed to have contained one fix.  I’m now wondering what else they may have removed!

One fix for MacOs. Nothing for Windows.

“Fixed browser hangs when viewing fullscreen videos on macOS 10.12 (bug 1737998)”

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DKThompson, Charlie

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I created an account so I could chime in with what I’ve found as an answer. I can’t recall whether this ability was present previously, but in FF 94, you’ll need to go into each icon and click the three dots, then Edit. Once there, click on Use a Custom Image. To use the site’s full page, like you did in previous versions, paste the same web address as you have in the target URL box, then Preview, then Save.

It’s working for me so far, after changing about half of my shortcuts.

 

Cheers!

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DKThompson

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resolved

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