Why is there suddenly a background pattern on my new tab page instead of the default gray?
A few days ago, a patterned background suddenly appeared on my new tab page, making it very difficult to read. I didn't add any background and, as far as I know, I don't have any add-ons that would add one. I hate it and want it returned to gray, but can't figure out any way to get rid of it. The only options I can find online suggest downloading an add-on and adding a new background, but I just want the default gray.
Chosen solution
Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.
(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)
- On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
- On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
- On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
- Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.
Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"
If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.
To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.
Please report back soon.
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Chosen Solution
Try Firefox Safe Mode to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.
(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)
- On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
- On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the option key while starting Firefox.
- On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
- Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.
Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"
If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode, your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems article for that.
To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.
Please report back soon.
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Thank you!
I restarted in Safe Mode and the background weirdness went away. Interestingly, when I restarted in normal mode to start disabling extensions to see if I could figure out which one might be causing the problem ... the background was still plain gray. Don't know what the problem was, but thanks!
Note that your System Details List shows that you have a user.js file in the profile folder to initialize some prefs on each start of Firefox.
The user.js file is only present if you or other software has created it, so normally it wouldn't be there. you can check its content with a plain text editor if you didn't create this file yourself.
The user.js file is read each time you start Firefox and initializes preferences to the value specified in this file, so preferences set via user.js can only be changed temporarily for the current session.
You also have some obsolete, no longer supported, preferences from previous Firefox versions.
You can delete the prefs.js file and possible numbered prefs-##.js and user.js files to reset all prefs to the default value or reset these prefs to the default value via the right-click context menu on the about:config page or edit the prefs.js file and remove related line(s).
If you do not keep changes after a restart or otherwise have problems with preferences, see:
Glad to hear that your problem has been solved.
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