Description of the issue:
for some reason, all search engines are suddenly gone, except the one I have as default (Startpage). Even Brave Search is gone. I don’t remember ever deleting them. All I did at some point was enable the automatic indexing of openseach-compatible websites, in order to try to get Ecosia and OceanHero, which kinda worked. After that, I disabled the automatic indexing (which it was disabled by default). I also disabled any automatic deletion of history or cookies (third party cookies are still disabled).
I’m using Brave on Fedora Silverblue 41. Everything worked fine first few days after install, all search engines were there. They disappeared about 2 days ago, not sure when exactly, or why.
I would like to bring them back, because I use them occasionally.
How can this issue be reproduced?
Install Brave on an updated Fedora Silverblue 41 (using the official instructions)
Use it for a few days
Suddenly, search engines are gone
Expected result:
search engines are there (as they were by default)
Brave Version (check About Brave):
Version 1.75.178 Chromium: 133.0.6943.98 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Additional Information:
I’m not sure if this is related or not, but a few days ago, Brave logged me out of all websites (it’s not supposed to, because again, I keep my history and cookies). I logged back into every account, and this didn’t happen again (yet).
also, probably unrelated, but I just tried changing my browser and system language from my native to English, and for some reason, the Brave Rewards button appeared, which I disabled it long ago.
The same happened to me, and it’s happening with each update of Brave.
I re-add all the site searches → a new Brave version comes out → my browser gets updated → all site searches are gone.
I’ve asked the team about this but in the meantime, @blind-confused I’m curious to know whether or not you can still add search engines to this list? If you can, do the new entries stay/persist throughout browsing sessions normally? Or do they get removed again at some point?
@danm for you I’d like to confirm whether or not this issue only occurs after you update or if other actions (like closing the browser, restarting your PC, etc) also cause the list of search engines to disappear?
Another question for @blind-confused – can you confirm whether the issue is that when you try to change the default engine, only one option is offered? Or is the issue that visiting brave://settings/searchEngines shows no search engines listed here?
Additionally, can both of you try creating a new browser profile (Menu --> More tools --> Add profile) and, in the new profile, go to brave://settings/searchEngines and confirm whether the new profile comes with the default list of search engines? Or do they not show any either?
The same thing has happened to me. I can access other search engine options from my second profile. The first profile deletes all browser data on exit, the second does not. I am able to add other search engines, but the format of the URL gets reset upon exit and so breaks it. For example if i set the URL for startpage to “https://www.startpage.com/do/search?query=%s&lui=english”, it will work for that session, but the next session after restarting Brave, it will try to search through “https://www.startpage.com/%s” and fail, leading to a not found page.
I’m sorry for the lack of replies from me - I wasn’t notified about any of this, for some reason, even though I enabled notifications for this website in Brave. Speaking of, when I go to account settings of this forum and click the “Enable notifications” button, nothing happens. Same for some other Discourse forums too. This could be another bug, or perhaps nothing happens because I already enabled notifications for this website a while ago, I’m not sure. Anyway.
um… thing is, I could never figure out how to add search engines into Brave. I thought it’s impossible. When I go to search engine settings, I just can’t find any button to add search engines. I thought that’s how it’s supposed to be and just dismissed it. all I found is a button for editing the existing search engines and a toggle for automatic indexing of certain websites, but even that, all it does is add them to the list of shortcuts or something like that, it doesn’t actually add the search engines from those websites.
am I doing something wrong? Please let me know.
it’s the second, when I visit brave://settings/searchEngines there are no search engines except Startpage, which I made my default a while ago.
after I do that, I can see all the search engines in brave://settings/searchEngines, yeah.
@blind-confused please see @Saoiray’s comment on a similar post for how to add your own search engines:
We also have documentation on our Help Center about this here:
@epicgamer45 can you please clarify what your actual issue here is?
As for the rest of you – I’m still looking into this but it would be very helpful to know the following (as asked previously):
is the issue that visiting brave://settings/searchEngines shows no search engines listed here?
Additionally, can both of you try creating a new browser profile (Menu --> More tools --> Add profile) and, in the new profile, go to brave://settings/searchEngines and confirm whether the new profile comes with the default list of search engines? Or do they not show any either?
My issue is the exact same one as the other guys. I believe it must be tied to the delete browser data on exit feature, as I have two profiles, one this feature enabled, one with it disabled. The one with it enabled has only the currently selected search engine on this page: brave://settings/searchEngines. The other has all the stock options available to select from on that page. The browser must be deleting those options on exit.
On the first profile with the search engine options deleted, when I try to add another search engine, the URL we input with a %s, gets wiped upon exit, and only remembers the domain, e.g. startpage.com, and tries to put the %s at the end (startpage.com/%s), which in the case of startpage doesn’t work.
um… this talks about changing the default search engine, which doesn’t work for me, as all of them (except Startpage) are removed. I need to know how to add search engines again. And I can’t find any button for that.
what I found is the “add” button in the “search by website” section, I added another search engine that way, and after I chose it as default, it joined the search engine list next to Startpage. However, the problem is, when it’s like this, and I open a new tab and click on the search icon in the URL input, I cannot select Startpage, it doesn’t even appear there. Same happens if I choose Startpage as my default again - I cannot select or see the other search engine. I could do all of that back before the search engines were gone. I need this functionality because every now and then I use different search engines, and always re-choosing them as defaults is just really uncomfortable. (I don’t mean to put any pressure on you though, I’m sorry if it sounded like that)
Thanks much appreciated. I just realised that I was being stupid with one part of what I told you. Like blind-confused’s last comment, I can add a site to search, but not a search engine. So when I was adding Startpage and the URL kept changing as I mentioned, it was because of the site search, not an added search engine. Sorry to confuse things further. blind-confused’s last comment basically summarises the issue I am having too.
@epicgamer45 I am a bit confused on the last reply from @blind-confused. But let me just reiterate here that Site Search and Search Engines are the same thing. The difference in the categories is that Search Engines are what was what the browser added by default. The ones listed there have referral codes that make sure Brave earns money every time we do a search.
Site Search is still adding search engine, can be made the default search, given a shortcut, etc. It acts exactly as you are thinking when you talk about making it a Search Engine. People just tend to think different because of the terminology. Items in Site Search can temporarily be added to Search Engines when we make it our default, but when we switch something else to the default it will go back to Site Search
Does this get cleared regardless of what you put in? While it might seem silly, I’m noticing enough of a difference here that I’m wondering if at least part of the issue is your deviation from what the browser generally instructs you to do. Such as instead of q=%s you have query=%s. Then not sure about the &lui=english added either. I guess my curiosity would be to have you test just with https://www.startpage.com/do/search?q=%s to see if the same thing happens.
Only because I’ve seen minor little things like this make differences, I figure it never hurts to check.
In regards to this, have you tested? For example, if you’re currently having it set to delete data on exit, could you disable that and see if it persists?
Not sure if Linux is supposed to work significantly different, but clicking on the icon does nothing on my Windows. The icon there when you type is just to show what search engine/site search you’re currently using. If you use your shortcut, such as maybe :br for Brave Search, then you’ll see the icon change to show the switch to using Brave Search.
I guess now I’m confused. Yes, you can use the Add button but I think the most reliable way to add a search engine to the browser is via OpenSearch – then you don’t have to worry about any weirdness with the search string.
So @epicgamer45@blind-confused lets use startpage as an example, but this can be done with any search engeine:
First, go to brave://settings/search and make sure you have the Index other search engines option toggled “on”
Now go to brave://settings/searchEngines and you have any weird Startpage entries here, delete them
Once done, go to startpage.com and perform any search on the site
Now go back go brave://settings/searchEngines (you may need to refresh the page if the tab was still open) and under Inactive searches you will see Startpage appear
Click Activate, then Right-click on the “three dots” icon next to it and select Make default
Startpage now appears in your default browsing engine list:
Note that this works for any search engine that supports OpenSearch (which is basically all of them that you’d want to use). Basically any time you search on one, if it can be added to that list then it will be. I’ve also included a short recording to ensure the steps make sense:
Good news, thanks to your help here, Startpage and Brave Search have added themselves back to the list. What seems to have happened is “Index other search engines” was automatically toggled off and the default search engines wiped. It was disabled for me, but I have never touched that option. Thank you so much for your help, that was very useful.
@Mattches@Saoiray I’m sorry for the confusion. I’ll try to clarify myself.
before my search engines were gone, I remember for sure that I was using the “click-and-choose” functionality, where I open a new tab, then just click on the search engine icon, get a dropdown menu and choose another search engine from there. My memory is fuzzy (I apologize for that), so I don’t remember for sure where exactly I was doing that - in the URL input itself, or in the search widget at the bottom of the screen. I just remember I was doing it and I was relying on it a lot. I think the URL input had this too (just like the search widget), but I’m not sure. I’m sorry.
but what I know for sure is, now this functionality just isn’t there. Clicking on the icon in the URL input does nothing, clicking on the icon in the search widget works, but my new search engines don’t get added to it’s list, even after making any of them the default, or checking the widget’s settings - the newly added search engines just aren’t there, and I couldn’t find any way of adding them there. All that’s in that list is the default Startpage (which is the only default one that wasn’t ever removed).
I would really appreciate if this functionality of click-and-choose was brought back somehow. I’m sorry again for the confusion, I hope I explained it better.
all I found is a button for editing the existing search engines and a toggle for automatic indexing of certain websites, but even that, all it does is add them to the list of shortcuts or something like that, it doesn’t actually add the search engines from those websites.