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How can i prevent Firefox from overriding identical history entries?

  • 1 reply
  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

scar504
scar504
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I'm using Firefox v12, and whenever it records a history entry that is identical to an older one, it deletes the old one and keeps the new one. For example, if i visited, "www.suchandsuch.com" on 1/15/2012, and then again today, it would delete the old entry and replace it with the new one for today.

Is there a way to change this? I've only just realized this feature and now understand why i've lost 1000's of history entries over the past year. I've looked on the "about:config" page, but i'd rather not fiddle with anything for fear of worsening the problem.

I'm using Firefox v12, and whenever it records a history entry that is identical to an older one, it deletes the old one and keeps the new one. For example, if i visited, "www.suchandsuch.com" on 1/15/2012, and then again today, it would delete the old entry and replace it with the new one for today. Is there a way to change this? I've only just realized this feature and now understand why i've lost 1000's of history entries over the past year. I've looked on the "about:config" page, but i'd rather not fiddle with anything for fear of worsening the problem.

Modified by cor-el

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Firefox keeps those older history entries and doesn't delete them because they are needed to calculate the visit count.
In the history list you only see the most recent visit and the other are hidden.

You can inspect the places.sqlite file with the SQLite Manager extension to see all visits.

  1. Open Profile Directory -> places.sqlite -> Go
  2. Hit the Execute SQL tab
  3. Use a Select like this: 
SELECT datetime(visit_date/1000000,'unixepoch') AS visit_date, url, title, visit_count, frecency
FROM moz_places, moz_historyvisits
WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id AND typed LIKE '1'
ORDER BY url, visit_date DESC

More examples for the WHERE clause:

  • WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id AND url LIKE '%google%'
  • WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id AND url LIKE '%youtube%' AND typed LIKE '1'
  • WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id AND visit_date BETWEEN strftime('%s','YYYY-MM-DD')*1000000 AND strftime('%s','YYYY-MM-DD')*1000000