Search in address bar just goes to google

[gromm]

Description of the problem:
This issue started with an accidental install of the Fast! UAP. I’ve done all the work required to remove the program and reset Brave to its defaults, but this one bug remains.

I try to search from the address bar, but instead, I just get redirected to Google’s front page. A demonstration of the problem, including showing the current browser settings, is in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2HEfKB7VFg
How can this issue be reproduced?

1. Install “Fast!”
2. Delete “Fast!”
3. Set the address bar search engine to Google (or any other search engine… the result is the same) for a normal window and a private window.
4. Try to search from the address bar.

Expected result:
Search with your chosen search engine, instead of being redirected to its home page.

Brave Version( check About Brave): 1.71.123

Additional Information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2HEfKB7VFg

[Mattches]

@gromm,
Thank you for the detailed report.
Do you have any extensions installed at this time? Additionally, if you change your default search engine to something other than Google, does the search go through normally? Lastly, can you go to brave://settings/searchEngines, click the “pencil” icon next to Google and confirm what the URL looks like there?

[gromm]

Hi, I only have two browser extensions: Adobe Acrobat and Chartfox.

I see the same behaviour if I switch my search engine to Bing or anything else.

Here is my Searchengines page. The full URL for the search is “{google:baseURL}search?q=%s&{google:RLZ}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}{google:assistedQueryStats}{google:searchFieldtrialParameter}{google:language}{google:prefetchSource}{google:searchClient}{google:sourceId}{google:contextualSearchVersion}ie={inputEncoding}”

[Mattches]

Can you please create a new temp. profile (Menu --> More tools --> Add profile), close your original profile window and then try searching in the new profile and tell me if you get the same results there?

[gromm]

Well, that works. It goes directly to the default Brave browser search.

[gromm]

No ideas about how to restore this functionality in my regular browser profile?

[Mattches]

@gromm,
Thanks for testing that. The purpose of that was to help determine whether the issue persisted across all of Brave/Brave profiles or if it was isolated to your main profile, which appears to be the case.

Now the issue is where is that “bad data” being stored that is causing this behavior. Unfortunately you may need to nuke your cookies/site data in order to [maybe] get rid of whatever data the Fast! extension inserted when it was installed.

To do this, I’d recommend going to Settings --> History --> Clear browsing data --> [Advanced] and elect to clear Cookies/site data first and then check to see if the issue persists. If it does, you may need to clear Site settings as well. If that does not work then we’ll have to explore other troubleshooting steps.

[gromm]

Oh hey, I found a solution that I’m sure other people can use.

Since creating a new profile works around the problem, I just exported all my tabs and bookmarks, then re-imported them into the other profile.

I’ll likely delete the old profile after I settle into this one, should there be no need to rescue any data from the old profile after a week or so.