I keep having this problem off and on. Sometimes, when I do control-K, type my query,  
and hit enter, nothing happens. Or it will give me seemingly random results from the 
internal network.

Today, when it happened again, I checked Options and the listing for search engines 
was empty. I did not remember deleting them.

I closed all Chrome windows and launched Chrome. I checked Options and the search 
engines were listed in the respective box. I was able to use Omni bar to do searches.

Windows XP running Chrome 2.0.169.1

I shut down the laptop each night and boot up in the morning.

It happened again this morning. I tried to run a query and nothing happened. I 
checked Options and the search engine list was blank. I closed all Chrome windows and 
tried again and the search engine list was back. The version is the same as above. It 
seems to be a problem on the first launch of Chrome after starting Windows.

I (thought I) was able to reproduce this consistently. I had two windows for gmail 
applications: one for my personal domain, and one for my work account.

When I hit ctrl-t in the work mail window, it opened a new window. That window had the 
missing search engine issue so I wasn't able to use the omni box to run a search. I 
repeatedly closed the window and hit ctrl-t to reproduce the problem and confirmed 
each time that the search engine list was empty.

When I hit ctrl-t in the personal mail window, it opened a new tab in an existing 
window. This window did not have an issue with the search engine.

When I hit ctrl-t in the regular window, it opened a new tab in the same window as 
above.

I closed all the Chrome windows and started a new session, I wasn't able to replicate 
the above. So, I retraced my steps to what happened right before the ctrl-t business.

In the previous session with the issue, I was reading a work message with a phrase 
that I did not understand. I selected the text and right-clicked and hit s to do a 
search on the selection. The search feature did not work. Instead, the right-click 
menu had an option to copy and something else, maybe Inspect element. Also, the effect 
of the s starred the message, which was not my intention. I thought maybe search did 
not work in an iframe so I tried to open a new tab after copying the selected text. 
That's when I ran into the issue as described above. This has happened before where I 
would try to search and instead, got the message starred.

In the new session, the right-click menu has the search option. I think maybe that 
window lost the search engine function, but since it was an application window, there 
was no omnibar nor options menu where I could see that, other than the missing Search 
function in the right-click menu. I guess the missing right-click search function is 
another symptom of the issue.

I still have this problem using version 2.0.172.33. This only happens on my work 
laptop so if anyone at Google would like to take a look, I work on the main campus. It 
is currently reproducible every time I launch a new Chrome window.

Thanks.

Thu

This just happened to a Chrome Stable computer that I updated to 2.0.172.39.  The 
customized, default google.com search engine settings were wiped out and reset to the 
original google.com values.

This can happen when your profile is wiped or replaced.  I don't believe the 4.x or 3.x 
releases have this bug.  Closing as fixed.

If the profile were wiped, wouldn't it delete bookmarks and logins/cookies, too? I just 
lost my ability to use the omnibar to search and it's because the search engines are 
not showing up in my Default search option box.

I'm using 4.0.213.1 (Official Build 27053). Once I restart Chrome after I post this, 
I'm sure the search engines will be populated again. If it does not, I'll let you know.

Go Chrome 4.0.201.1 and it just happen to me. the window showing search engine is 
empty.
I've set it again but it disapear once again.
My profile is intact and bookmarks are still there

Just happened to me with 4.0.249.30 on Linux.  Not sure what caused it, but I did shut 
down Chrome at least once by killing the X server.

Using Ubuntu 10.4 with Chrome version 5.0.375.99 beta and this issue is occurring every time I close my browser.  I know it's been a while since anyone posted here and it seems to be marked as fixed but this is really annoying.  The omnibox search is a really nice feature and it's REALLY bugging me that I've lost it.

As above - Ubuntu 10.4, all of a sudden the default search disappeared. Very annoying. Reinstallation or upgrading to unstable chrome doesn't help.

I wound up uninstalling
(sudo apt-get remove google-chrome-beta)

Blowing away all profile info
(rm -fR ~/.config/google-chrome)

Then reinstalling
(sudo apt-get remove google-chrome-beta)

Now it works fine but I lost all profile information which is VERY annoying.

I am using Ubuntu 10.04 64bit and Chromium on 5.0375.

Everytime I start Chromium all the search engines (with and without keywords) are wiped out.

This is really annoying since I use them all the time!

This issues started about 2 weeks ago.


Does anybody know a solution for this? Do I really have to go back to Firefox?

Happened the same with Chromium in Ubuntu 10.04 today. Quick solution... add it manually:

go to Options > Basics (tab) > Default Search... click Manage and use:

Name: Google
Keyword: web
URL: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s

Make Default

Yeah, I tried that but it went away as soon as chromium was restarted.

Only solution I've found was to uninstall, blow-away all application data, and re-install.  Haven't had any issues since then and it's been about a month.

Same here, adding manually works until restarting Chrome.
The difference in my case is that the list is not completely empty, there's one surviving entry which is listen.grooveshark.com. Whatever happens, it spares this entry.

Following a friend's instructions I dumped the content of the keywords table in the 'Web Data' DB in my profile folder, and it's full of hundreds of entries.

Forgot to add Ubuntu 10.04 Chrome 6.0.472.41 beta.

Just happened to me too. Updated Google Chrome this morning (to: 7.0.503.1 dev) and lost ALL my search engines. (I also use them to replace Firefox's keyword feature)

The same on Mac 10.6.4. Manually entered search engines get disappeared upon browser restart.  
FIX THIS ASAP, BECAUSE CHROME IS UNUSABLE!!! Argh.... :(((

Same behavior for me: all defaults were lost and new additions are lost upon restart.

Ubuntu 10.04 Chrome 6.0.472.41 beta

Re-opening. Assigning to Miranda only because it involves search engines. +cc Evan,Pink in case they know the right people on Linux or Mac to have a look.
-------

It looks like something has regressed here. This issue was dormant, but there've been quite a few reports in the last couple of weeks. 

Looks like 472 might be affected.

+pkasting

Peter, you said you could test this easily -- could you let me know if you can repro this on Windows?  I can't get it to show up for Mac or Win at all.  

I didn't say I could test it easily, I said it seemed like if it affected everyone, then it should be easy to simply update one's build and restart.

If that doesn't repro the problem for you, then we should probably fall back on trying to get some people's profiles and see what's up.

This happened to me when Chromium 7 dev was released. I tried to switch back to v6 beta and the issue persists on 6.0.472.51 (Official Build 57639) beta.
I was taking a look at the preferences file and it has a default search provider specified but I did notice that exited_cleanly is set to false and that it doesn't get updated with the engines I saved (I don't know if they are saved on this file), but it does save my homepage URL if I change it.

Preferences 1.2 KB   View   Download

I managed to get this warning from chrome logs:
[7092:2856:120598834:WARNING:web_database.cc(1838)] Unable to update web database to version 23.

This is a great report, alessandroasm -- thank you (and thanks to all the others who reported, as well!).  The error you're seeing matches what I found when I did some poking around today -- looks like there's a problem updating part of the autofill database, and that causes the following database updates -- including search engines -- to fail.

Patch should be coming soon, and I apologize for any lost search engines.  One question -- can you remember when you updated your Chrome build before the v7 dev release that wiped out your search engines?

I don't remember the precise version, but I was using the latest dev build for some time.
I checked what changes are made in the database when upgrading to version 23 against my local Web Data file and turns out they were already there, even though the database version was set to 22 in the meta table. Manually setting the version to 23 fixed the issue and all search engines came back.
I don't see anything that could have failed between adding the verification_code_encrypted column and setting database version to 23, unless the SetVersionNumber method has failed itself.

 Issue 53752  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 53421  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 53762  has been merged into this issue.

The reports keep rolling in. I don't think we can update Stable users until we fix this.

+cc brettw and shess in case their sqlite/web database expertise can help here.

I have a patch that I've tested on Mac that stops the search engine database read fail: http://codereview.chromium.org/3239006/show

Even better, it restores search engines for any user that has the database in a "corrupted" state.
This patch is a half-revert of the logo_id that had been added to the database a month ago, that is actually no longer needed for the search engine dialog as of last week.

The correct structural solution to this problem is to fix the underlying issue in case 22 of the web_database migration code, which breaks web database migration if it's applied to any build which wasn't updated between mid-january (when the credit card table was added to the database) and april (when case 22 to update the credit card table).  If the user didn't update any time between these dates, their database will never be properly migrated, because case 22 will always fail -- it tries to alter the credit card table before it exists.  The upshot is that none of the following updates take place -- including the search engine logo update.  This bomb has been lying in wait for months, but was only revealed now, when people's search engines started breaking.  Luckily, because the search engine dialog logic changed last week, we don't need the logo to be stored at all any more, and can remove it.  

Instead of a comprehensive solution for M6, I propose something much more conservative -- not fixing anything except the search engine logo symptoms, by simply completely ignoring that column in the database, whether it exists or not.  This just means fewer changes / side effects to test.

If the SQL masters think that fixing the problem in the case 22 update makes sense to do so quickly, that's even better. 

We should do the real fix. Make InitCreditCardsTable take a boolean indicating whether the table as created. If the tab was created don't do the migration.

Sky, do you want to real fix for stable, or just for the next mstone?

Excellent.  Even simpler.  Testing now.

 Issue 49179  has been merged into this issue.

(No comment was entered for this change.)

Fixed with http://codereview.chromium.org/3239006/show.  Will discuss with testers how to verify.

The following revision refers to this bug:
    http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision=57902 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r57902 | mirandac@chromium.org | 2010-08-30 13:55:26 -0700 (Mon, 30 Aug 2010) | 5 lines
Changed paths:
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.cc?r1=57902&r2=57901
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.h?r1=57902&r2=57901

Fix credit card table migration step by ensuring that we're not trying to add a column which is already present.  If we create a table as part of the init process, don't try to alter the table, because it already exists.

BUG=10913
TEST= search engine dialog works, search engines don't disappear.
Review URL: http://codereview.chromium.org/3239006
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Issue 53954  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 53783  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 53015  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 53774  has been merged into this issue.

Build: 6.0.472.53
OS: XP

Taking back the verification. The fix rocks for new profile. But I can notice the same issue, if user has corrupted profile.

 Issue 53089  has been merged into this issue.

@47, new profile I mean the profile before the web_database migration !!

it means: This patch doesn't repair corrupted profiles.

You have to be specific about what a "corrupted profile" means to you and where we could test with one.

Yeah, need more data.  And also need to know what version the profiles were created/corrupted in.

Corrupted profile: A profile after web_database migration took place!!. I think any profile after the revision r37036 does this.

We just had a major sql pow-wow at my desk; this bug is uncovering all sorts of strangeness deep in the data migration system.  Sky, georgey, dholloway, shess, and mal and I just worked out a patch for this problem.  Fix coming shortly.

Not sure what version that the corrupted profile was created in, but the current version where the bug symptoms were experienced in (for me) is:


Google Chrome	7.0.503.0 (Official Build 57033) dev
WebKit	534.6
V8	2.3.9
User Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_4; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/7.0.503.0 Safari/534.6
Command Line	 /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome -psn_0_3326764

The following revision refers to this bug:
    http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision=58105 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r58105 | mirandac@chromium.org | 2010-08-31 17:04:55 -0700 (Tue, 31 Aug 2010) | 7 lines
Changed paths:
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.cc?r1=58105&r2=58104
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.h?r1=58105&r2=58104

Fix web_database credit card table data migration. 

(This is the trunk version of 3228011).

BUG=10913
TEST= run build on profile from before 37036; search engines should work. run build on corrupted profile (one from before 37036 that has been updated with build 6.0.472.50); search engines should work.
Review URL: http://codereview.chromium.org/3240007
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following revision refers to this bug:
    http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision=58106 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r58106 | mirandac@chromium.org | 2010-08-31 17:06:30 -0700 (Tue, 31 Aug 2010) | 5 lines
Changed paths:
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/branches/472/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.cc?r1=58106&r2=58105
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/branches/472/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.h?r1=58106&r2=58105

Fix web_database credit card table data migration.

BUG=10913
TEST= run build on profile from before 37036; search engines should work.  run build on corrupted profile (one from before 37036 that has been updated with build 6.0.472.50); search engines should work.
Review URL: http://codereview.chromium.org/3228011
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fix for this was landed.

Issue 54045 has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54060  has been merged into this issue.

The following revision refers to this bug:
    http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision=58247 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r58247 | dhollowa@chromium.org | 2010-09-01 15:05:24 -0700 (Wed, 01 Sep 2010) | 8 lines
Changed paths:
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.cc?r1=58247&r2=58246
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database.h?r1=58247&r2=58246
   M http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/browser/webdata/web_database_unittest.cc?r1=58247&r2=58246

Migration unit tests to web database for missing images on the search ballot

Adds migration unit tests to web database for missing images on the search ballot.  This is follow-up from review http://codereview.chromium.org/3189004.

BUG=52452, 50699, 10913
TEST=WebDatabaseMigrationTest.MigrateVersion22ToCurrent, WebDatabaseMigrationTest.MigrateVersion22CorruptToCurrent, WebDatabaseMigrationTest.MigrateVersion24ToCurrent

Review URL: http://codereview.chromium.org/3295002
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Issue 54210  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54394  has been merged into this issue.

Great fix Miranda!!. I tried my best to catch any leftovers but this time no major!!

As discussed here are the two small things:

1) Search engines added during profile corruption were lost - I Think this is ok ??.
-Install a build before migration (for eg: 4.0.249.70)
-Over Install a build with migration (for eg: 6.0.472.50 ) + Add few search engines here manually
-Over Install the build with fix(6.0.472.55) 
Result: the search engines added in step2 were lost - but user will get all the search engines whatever exists in step1.

2)Default search engine is taken from corrupted profile  issue 54431 .
-Install a build before migration (for eg: 4.0.249.70) + Set yahoo as default search engine
-Install a build with migration (for eg: 6.0.472.50 ) - please note this well set Google As default search engine.
-Install the build with fix(6.0.472.55) 

Expected: Yahoo should be the default search engine.

Issue: Google is the default search engine - This is taken from corrupted profile.

Thanks, Venkat -- and thanks to all the testers for really nailing the edge cases on this one!  :-D

As for 1) -- because the web database is in an inconsistent state at this point, any modifications will fail.  So, as you say, this is ok -- we can't do anything about it.

For 2) -- The default search engine setting is, unfortunately, correctly stored when you install 6.0.472.50 -- so the data for your previous default setting is overwritten.  I'm afraid that makes this a CantFix.  Will note on the bug you filed, thanks.

Verified on mac, with 6.0.472.55 (Official Build 58392). Got the same results as in Windows.

 Issue 54491  has been merged into this issue.

Verified on Win7 Home Premium x64, Chrome version 6.0.472.53 (Official Build 57914).

 Issue 54688  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54662  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54651  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54647  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54503  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54841  has been merged into this issue.

I don't understand - what is the fix for this?

Please upgrade to the very latest version of any channel to pick up the fix.

When I reported this issue (http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=54647) I was on 7.0.503.0 (Official Build 57033) dev. I am now in 7.0.517.0 dev and the issue still occurs. 

I am now on 7.0.520.0 (58891), and the problem seems to have cleared.  Thank you!

Robert, if you're still failing on the very newest version, could you zip up your web_database file (you can find it in the user data directory listed here, according to the system you're on: http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel) and send it to me at mirandac@chromium.org?  I can take a look and see if anything looks corrupted.  Thanks for your report.

Discussed with Robert offline -- I think we've solved his problem and found the source of the error -- no need to reopen on his account.

I have the same issue. (Ubuntu 10.04 32 bit -- Google Chrome 6.0.472.55) After reading the posts, I have uninstalled Google Chrome and installed it back again downloading from www.google.com/chrome website.. I still have the same problem: no default search engines list, searching from the address bar won't work..

I've read comments above removing the whole application data and then reinstalling Chrome. I'd rather getting rid of the bug without losing my personal settings..

 Issue 55373  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 54854  has been merged into this issue.

having this issue with 6.0.472.62 on windows vista but was having issues with earlier updates as well. is there a remedy that doesn't require uninstalling the whole browser? like mustafa, i'd like to keep my personal settings.

@nhizzat - use Chrome Sync and you won't lose any settings. It is in-built into Chroma and syncs settings, bookmarks and extensions. :)

@robertmarkbram - it doesn't work you'll still loose your search engines.

It doesn't work _period_, sync keeps telling me that my account data are wrong while I just logged off and on again with the same data. Google chrome sync support page is inaccessible both live and cached (http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=25799&topic=28652)
I guess it is a proxy problem? Trying again tonight at home, should it fail, do you guys know if I can copy my chrome windows profile under linux not to lose everything?

 Issue 54516  has been merged into this issue.

I have had this problem for a long time now and have been putting up with it so far. I miss it, since it is a really cool feature, but not essential at all. Today, after reading all this thread I just gave up. =)

I am using Ubuntu 10.04 and just updated my Chrome to 7.0.517.36 beta and it did not help, so just removed my profile and started from scratch. It works now.

Also had this problem, deleting the file "Web Data" in the profile solved it while retaining the bookmarks.
Google Chrome	7.0.517.36 (Offizieller Build 61761) beta; Ubuntu 10.04

This still occurs with 7.0.517.47
It seems to have been lost by visiting www.foodpress.com. For some reason, Foodpress has been added as a a search provider, but the default Google entry has been lost.

Is there an easy to add the search providers back in?

I'm not a developer, but I have been having this problem in Ubuntu 10.4 Chrome for some time... I try (sudo chromium-browser) to update the default search settings and after restart it seems to be gone. Regular user settings updates are also wiped on restart. I had also noticed occasionally during fiddling, that settings would re-appear though I'm not sure i could reproduce these results. If there is anything I can do to fix for this I'd be keen to know, thanks.

92: You should never run under sudo.  It's a bad idea for multiple reasons, but one in particular is that your profile directory (or some files under it) become owned by root, causing chromium to be unable to update them when running as a normal user.  Dunno if this explains all your problems, but you should check to make sure your .config/chromium and .cache/chromium directories (and all their subdirs/files) are owned by your user account.

In some cases, such as mine, the problem is just a corrupted profile.  A
complete uninstall/ reinstall worked, but only when I also wiped out the
profile.

Still having identical issue running 7.0.517.44 (64615) on Ubuntu 10.04. 
Create a search engine -> use it without problem -> close chromium -> search engines wiped out. 

hukketto, try the workaround in comment 90

yes, I have tried it and it worked like a charm :) Hence rebuilding the whole db from scratch appears the only working solution.. Thanks @jakobunt

Chrome Version       : 1.0.154.53 (Official Build 11798)
URLs (if applicable) :  N/A
Other browsers tested:  N/A
<b>Add OK or FAIL after other browsers where you have tested this issue:</b>
     Safari 4:  N/A
  Firefox 3.x:  N/A
         IE 7:  N/A
         IE 8:  N/A

<b>What steps will reproduce the problem?</b>
1.  Right click on the address bar
2.  Select Default Search Engines

<b>What is the expected result?</b>

See default search engines you have configured

<b>What happens instead?</b>

All previously configured default search engines have been wiped out.

<b>Please provide any additional information below. Attach a screenshot if</b>
<b>possible.</b>

I use the &quot;Default Search Engines&quot; feature of Chrome as a substitute for 
the Firefox &quot;keywords&quot; feature that lets you type a shortcut keyword in the 
address bar and expands it into a full URL.  All those shortcuts have been 
wiped out along with all my default search engines such as Google, Amazon, 
Rotten Tomatoes, etc. so I'm having a pretty bad user experience. I think 
this happened some time in the past week.

Possible causes:

* I rebooted my laptop twice this week
* Auto-updates may have caused it