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Not all my past history is showing itself and a lof of it isnt being tracked now?

  • 19 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by FredMcD

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When i go to 'show all history' only a small portion of what i searched today gets shown. If i change months the same thing happens

A lot of what i am browsing now isn't being tracked either, this only started occurring like 2 days ago.

When i go to 'show all history' only a small portion of what i searched today gets shown. If i change months the same thing happens A lot of what i am browsing now isn't being tracked either, this only started occurring like 2 days ago.

All Replies (19)

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Make sure you are Not using Private Browsing.


Also, check your settings and make sure that history is not cleared.

Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the tool bar. Followed by;

Windows; Tools > Options Linux; Edit > Preferences Mac; application name > Preferences

Then Privacy.

The button next to History, select Use Custom Settings.

At the bottom of the page, turn on Clear History When Firefox Closes. At the far right, press the Settings button. Turn on ONLY Cache and Form And Search History leaving the others off.

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Problems with bookmarks and history not working properly can be caused by a corrupted places.sqlite database file.

Open a new tab or window. type about:support in the address box and press enter. Or Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the tool bar. Then Help > Troubleshooting Information.

Under the page logo on the left side you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To it’s right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Locate the file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox.

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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window
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What am i suppose to rename that file too?

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What am i suppose to rename that file too? Most just add .Old to the extension. If you still have a problem, you can restore that file. If the problem is fixed, you can remove it.

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So i just deleted the places.squite corrupt and OLD files and now my history has been reset (browsing, my passwords for websites still are there) should i be okay now?

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Yeah now firefox should be tracking your complete history.

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Okay. So everything is back to being tracked again. However firefox only shows the history of my past two days now (i deleted the corrupt file on thursday and it's saturday now) and nothing is being tracked past that...

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If history was removed, it's gone. You can only get it back if you have backups. Follow these instructions. You can try to restore an old backup, but they may have problems also.

Open a new tab or window. type about:support in the address box and press enter. Or Press the Alt or F10 key to bring up the tool bar. Then Help > Troubleshooting Information.

Under the page logo on the left side you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To it’s right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Enter the bookmarkbackups folder. This is where Firefox makes backups of your bookmarks. Look for the json file you want to restore (check the time / date / size). Right click on that file and select Copy. Now go back to the profile folder where you started. Rename the file bookmarks.html by adding .old to it. Now right click in the folder and select Paste. The file you just pasted here, rename it to bookmarks.html. After you are done, restart Firefox.

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I don't mind that the history is gone however obviously something is still corrupted for it only to be tracking History from 'Today' and 'yesterday' and nothing past that, when it usually tracks history for just over 6 months. Do you know what could be causing that?

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In case you are using "Clear history when Firefox closes":

  • do not clear the Browsing History

Note that clearing "Site Preferences" clears all exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, software installation, passwords, and other website specific data.

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Nope I don't have that option checked

I just searched something i was on 3 days ago in the search bar and it comes up then but that is the only way to access it, otherwise it just comes up the options of today and yesterday on the sidebar

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today and yesterday on the sidebar Sidebar? Did you open the full window? <Control><Alt> H

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No. I mean when you go into 'show all history' and it says "Today yesterday, Wednesday etc"

Mine only comes up 'Today and yesterday' and doesn't track any day before that unless i search it in the search bar.

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Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem.

  • Switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance
  • Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window

You can check for problems with the places.sqlite database file in the Firefox profile folder.

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Started in safe mode, found nothing


Just went back to look at the Places.sqilite file and found these two next to the original

places.sqilite-shm places.sqilite-wal

Normal?

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places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal are SQLite temp files and should disappear when you close Firefox.

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Oh fair enough.

Well i couldn't find anything in the hardware.

What's my best option now? Is there some sort of resetting i could do that could fix it? What about reinstalling firefox?

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Option: Create a new profile, and copy elements of the old to the new. Add-ons, bookmarks, password . . . but no settings!

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile