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Location bar search returns wrong bookmarks. Bug?

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by oda.krell

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Say I save a bookmark to "mozilla.org", and give it the name "XYZ". When I type "XYZ" in the location bar, autocomplete will suggest the mozilla bookmark.

Now say I rename this bookmark, calling it "ABC" instead. Now *both* "ABC" and "XZY" will give me the mozilla bookmark as a suggestion.

In other words, location bar autocomplete seems to remember old bookmark names instead of forgetting them. Bug, or feature? If the latter, any way to disable it?

Say I save a bookmark to "mozilla.org", and give it the name "XYZ". When I type "XYZ" in the location bar, autocomplete will suggest the mozilla bookmark. Now say I rename this bookmark, calling it "ABC" instead. Now *both* "ABC" and "XZY" will give me the mozilla bookmark as a suggestion. In other words, location bar autocomplete seems to remember old bookmark names instead of forgetting them. Bug, or feature? If the latter, any way to disable it?

Chosen solution

hello oda.krell, i think it's a feature. it isn't the old name of the bookmark that is stored - part of the algorithm that suggests the results in the drop-down field once you start typing in the location bar will remember what characters you've typed in and which entry you have chosen as a result. this is done to list that site higher the next time you start typing the same characters... this kind of data is stored within the moz_inputhistory table within the places.sqlite file in your profile folder (that also holds your bookmarks & history). you could use an addon like https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/ in order to inspect or alter certain elements stored in that database.

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All Replies (7)

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Chosen Solution

hello oda.krell, i think it's a feature. it isn't the old name of the bookmark that is stored - part of the algorithm that suggests the results in the drop-down field once you start typing in the location bar will remember what characters you've typed in and which entry you have chosen as a result. this is done to list that site higher the next time you start typing the same characters... this kind of data is stored within the moz_inputhistory table within the places.sqlite file in your profile folder (that also holds your bookmarks & history). you could use an addon like https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/ in order to inspect or alter certain elements stored in that database.

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Make sure that you really rename the bookmark and that you aren't creating a copy.

You can enter the URL in the search bar in the Library or sidebar to see if multiple entries come up.

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... aaand solved. Thanks a lot :) I deleted the search term from places.sqlite, and now the location bar suggests only based on the actual bookmark name again. Guess I'll have to do this every time I rename an important bookmark.

P.S. the squlite manager people really should put a big flashing note how to open the program. of the entire procedure, finding out how to start the manager took the longest :P

Modified by oda.krell

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Surely the old bookmark name would not be recalled if you had cleared your history?

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Nope. Tried that.

Looks like the places.squlite value stores the search term, the count, and some bookmark location value.

I don't know why deleting and re-creating the bookmark didn't solve it, since I would have expected that a new bookmark (even one containing the same URL) should have resulted in a new location value.

In any case, nothing else had worked, not deleting the bookmark and making a new one, not deleting history. Deleting the search term/bookmark value pair from places.sqlite fixed it however.

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URLs typed in the location bar seem behave differently than site that you visit.
If they appear in the drop-down list the you should be able to remove them in the usual way by highlighting an entry in the drop-down list and pressing the Delete key.

It is usually not recommended to edit or remove data in the places.sqlite because that database consists of a lot of tables that are linked via specific fields and can cause the file to get corrupted or may require re-indexing.

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tried that as well. item re-appeared in the list once I searched again.