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Can't delete or store my browsing history

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  • 118 have this problem
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  • Last reply by John99

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I can't store my browsing history of my firefox 3.6.17 browser for about three months. Although it is May I can't delete my January and February browsing history no matter how much i try. I tried going to options-> privacy-> clear recent history. Everything else erases except browsing history. How can I fix it?

I can't store my browsing history of my firefox 3.6.17 browser for about three months. Although it is May I can't delete my January and February browsing history no matter how much i try. I tried going to options-> privacy-> clear recent history. Everything else erases except browsing history. How can I fix it?

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Some words of caution, the database file places.sqlite stores both the browsing history and the bookmarks, so you are in danger of loosing bookmarks when trying to solve this problem. Firefox also saves some backup copies of bookmarks, but as they are by default within your profile, there is also a danger they may be lost, coupled with the fact that restoring such backups overwrites any existing file it is good practice to make a copy of your bookmarks manually, and export them somewhere safe. (or maybe even copy the whole set of profile files somewhere safe, including the bookmarks backup folder whilst working on this problem)

Have a look at the article Changes to toolbars and window sizes are not saved and the one it is based on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Corrupt_localstore.rdf The first suggestion is to reset the toolbars and controls in safe mode, that will potentially loose some of your customisation/customization but hopefully will solve the problem. If it does not work the next stage is carefully following the instructions to delete the correct localstore.rdf file.

A final last resort remedy will be deleting (BUT rename it, or ensure a copy is retained so it is not lost entirely - if the bookmarks are important, there may be methods of extracting some of the information from the file that you could try) the places.sqlite database, but that will destroy your bookmarks records, and you will be forced to rely on any backups - they may, or may not, work.