I’m unable to change the default search engine (or even set one initially)

[A7MD1]

Description of the issue:
How can this issue be reproduced?

1. Attempting to change the default search engine using Settings ----> Search Engine
2. Clicking on ‘Change’

Expected result:
A pop-up appears showing the available search engines to choose from
Brave Version( check About Brave):
1.78.97
Additional Information:
There is no default search engine set. When I click on the search engine option and click ‘Change’, nothing happens — though I can change it successfully in a Private tab.

I noticed the URL in the regular tab changes, but the page remains unaffected. Only after refreshing does the ‘Set Default Search Engine’ prompt appear. After selecting an engine, it shows ‘Successfully set as default’, but no actual change occurs. The chosen engine doesn’t appear in regular tabs, unlike Private tabs where it works correctly.

When I click on the three-dot menu (⋮) next to my preferred search engine, the ‘Make default’ option appears grayed out and is unclickable (As in the screenshot)

[VanguardLH]

In order to switch to a different search engine, you have to have another one defined. Under the “Manage search engines and site search” option, are any search engines defined other than the current default one?

Note when I add search engines, I do NOT prefix the keyword with a colon (“:”). That adds a couple keystrokes (Shift + colon) that are unnecessary to instigate that search engine in the address bar. I deleted the Brave Search entry to eliminate the superfluous colon prefix, and also to eliminate the “desktop” argument in the URL, so I have:

Brave
br
https://search.brave.com/search?q=%s

I already have “b” reserved as the keyword for Bing, so I changed Brave from “b” to “br” or I could’ve use “brav”. If you don’t have a Site Search entry using “b” then use “b” for Brave.

I noticed Brave added some tracking arguments to their URLs which I did not want, so I deleted the ones in the Search Engine category, defined them under Site Search category, and then elected which one to make the default. You cannot delete the default search engine under Search Engines, so create a new one, make that the default, delete the old default, recreate the old one under Site Search, and then make that one the default.

Not sure why Brave thought the colon prefix was needed since it isn’t. The address bar triggers on the keyword specified for a search engine, and it doesn’t need to have the colon prefix. Maybe it was to clue users that a colon-prefixed keyword would use a different-than-default search engine. However, once you enter the keyword, the address bar changes to show the search engine that gets used.

I wouldn’t try to edit a search engine listed under the Search Engines category. Instead add search engines under the Site Search category. Not sure what is the difference since both types perform the same way. There is no Add button for the Search Engines category, just the 3-dot menu on them to delete or deactivate them. Define which ones you want under Site Search. If you need to create a new Site Search entry the same as for a Search Engine entry, delete the Search Engine entry (you might want to copy its URL before deletion), create it under Site Search, and then make the new one under Site Search the default.