MacOS safari URL bar/box doesn't search or offer suggestions and tabs are blank

I've still never seen this problem in Safari Technology Preview, which gives me hope that the next update will solve it. In the meantime, I may have stumbled upon a workaround. Recently I realized that I hadn't seen the defect arise in Safari 15.1 for a few days and tried to isolate the problem. It seems that as long as I leave at least one Safari window open at all times, the misbehaviour never occurs. If I start Safari from scratch, begin using the first window and tab as I normally would, and take care to ensure that I never close that window, Safari continues to operate as expected. If I close all of Safari's windows without quitting the app, then at some point return to Safari and open a new window and resuming using it, eventually the defect recurs and compels me to restart Safari.

Appears to be fixed in Monterey 12.1 / Safari 15.2 . I've been trying to replicate the defect ever since completing the update an hour or so ago without incident.

Lioser wrote:

Has anyone encounter this issue and know how to solve it? The only thing I did before having this problems was starting to use group tabs in iOS15 and Big Sur.

Perhaps that could be the reason, here use Safari -> Tab layout : Separate.

From Safari go to the search engine Google.

What happens when you press the Enter key?

I've also seen both of these defects since migrating to Monterey and Safari 15.1. I've even seen it after having Safari running for a while but idle with no windows open, where the next time I open a new window the address bar doesn't offer suggestions. Quitting and restarting Safari seems to resolve the problem temporarily.

Quitting and restarting Safari still restores the correct behaviour temporarily for me.

In other news, I've been unable to replicate the defect with the latest Safari Technology Preview that dropped today (Release 135 (Safari 15.4, WebKit 17613.1.7.3)).