This issue has existed since at least Firefox 47 ... When you begin typing something in the location bar, the dropdown, when it first appears (for a very brief moment), shows the results from the prior search. This will occur if your last search was entered (i.e. you press enter and are sent to your configured search engine), or whether you simply use the backspace button or otherwise clear the location bar and then begin typing something else. To reproduce: 1) type a search phrase that produces several results (optimally something that produces the most results that can be shown (this might be achieved by i.e. just typing the letter "e")) 2) backspace until the location bar is empty and the results are hidden 3) paste the following random string (which should produce no results other than "Search with ...") into the location bar: "uzkkqxdrxjowjlms" and watch carefully ... 4) notice that the results for "e" show up momentarily, then the results shrink and only show the "Search with" result applicable to your new search.

I'm using FF48 on WIn 7 and I can't repoduce it. What's your OS? Did you test with a fresh profile? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Tested on Windows 10 in addition to Linux. Tested in fresh profile on Windows 10 with same result. Maybe you're on a faster system which makes it harder to notice the glitch. Mine are not bleeding edge (an Optiplex 780 and Optiplex 380), but are by no means antique.

I doubt my computer is fast, it's a 5-year-old laptop.

I appreciate your time in attempting to confirm this bug. Could you please try this alternate method of confirmation?: 1) install DOM Inspector (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dom-inspector-6622/) 2) type "blahblah" into the location bar and press enter 3) open a new tab (for good measure) 4) open Dom Inspector 5) select File->Inspect Chrome Document->1 Mozilla Firefox 6) right click on "#document" and select "Copy XML" 7) paste the XML into a text editor 8) search the text for "blahblah" ... you will notice that the search results weren't cleared (there would of course be more as well as more interesting results if your search term was something less unique, but it's harder to assure you don't find an unrelated match in the XML if you use something less unique). the results from the prior search weren't cleared, and this is how it is able to appear briefly the next time the user begins typing into the location bar. the prior search doesn't get cleared until you do another search.

please ignore prior comment (#4) -- upon closer inspection, this does not produce the corroboration I though it did.

alright, I think i've determined why you weren't able to reproduce ... please set browser.urlbar.autoFill to false and try the original reproduction steps again. that setting doesn't have to be off to reproduce, but it's easier to reproduce with it off. when it's on you can reproduce but you have to pause for a second between backspacing the autofilled portion and the "e" that you typed.

I can reproduce it today, without changing pref, by just pausing a few sec before pasting "uzkkqxdrxjowjlms".

Regression range: https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=3a4bfa5d2d02&tochange=8e5c888d0d89 Marco Bonardo — Bug 1047613 - Reduce awesomebar results pane flickering. r=adw

by the way, I thought I should clarify -- this bug doesn't require the location bar to be empty, either. for example, if the user types a string which produces results, then clicks somewhere else in the UI (hiding the search results), then places their cursor at the end of the location bar and pastes "uzkkqxdrxjowjlms", the no-longer applicable results pop up momentarily when the user pastes.

Too late for 48

Hi Marco, we were reviewing this bug in the platform triage meeting. If I clear the search results and somebody else uses my browser, they will still be able to look at my search activity (via location bar) because of this bug. With the privacy impact here, don't you think this should be a P1/P2? I'd really love to see this one fixed in 50 or 51.

I'm not sure there's a serious privacy implication here, cause the same person who would look your previous search, could just start hitting CTRL+Z on the location bar input field and see all the searches you did... And if so, this is just an annoying visual glitch

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #12) > I'm not sure there's a serious privacy implication here, cause the same > person who would look your previous search, could just start hitting CTRL+Z > on the location bar input field and see all the searches you did... And if > so, this is just an annoying visual glitch Ok, so this time I tried the STR and noticed that this isn't about "clearing search history" not working. When I read the steps in the meeting, I was under the impression that the search results are showing up even after clearing the search history. Thankfully that is not the case. My bad! I think your assessment of this as a P3 makes sense. Since this is not a new regression, I will tag this as a fix-optional for Fx50.

Just a thought, to avoid flickering we could just make the unmatching rows unreadable through color: transparent; and a text-shadow. Should be tried first though, to ensure it's not annoying.