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Firefox is erasing my history beyond the 180 days it is supposed to save, how do I stop this?

  • 6 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by RainbowGlow

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It was saving even beyond the 180 days, then suddenly it started wiping those days away, sometimes a day in 24 hrs time, but sometimes several days at a time. It has now started erasing days UNDER 180 days with no sign of stopping. I don't know how to stop it, it is very upsetting and unsettling.

It seems to erase more, the more active I am online (fewer erasures when I am offline), but other than that I don't know what I am doing or why this suddenly happened.

It was saving even beyond the 180 days, then suddenly it started wiping those days away, sometimes a day in 24 hrs time, but sometimes several days at a time. It has now started erasing days UNDER 180 days with no sign of stopping. I don't know how to stop it, it is very upsetting and unsettling. It seems to erase more, the more active I am online (fewer erasures when I am offline), but other than that I don't know what I am doing or why this suddenly happened.

All Replies (6)

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Firefox no longer limits the history retention by number of days. It is using size of files or number of files, or both. It makes sense that the more you access, the more history will be deleted.

  • browser.history.maxStateObjectSize;655360
  • browser.sessionhistory.max_entries;50
  • places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages;104858

I think these are the parameters used.

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1. When did this change occur? Recently? I was fine until last week!

2. Is there anything I can do about this?

3. And finally what do these 3 parameters mean for me....for example, in the second one, does this limit the number of pages I can access in one session (browser.sessionhistory.max_entries; 50)? Can anyone translate these 3 parameters into "plain English" for me please?

Thanks for your help.

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So can I go to this places.history.expiration.max_pages and change the maximum number of pages (or preferable by days or dates)? I don't understand a lot of the technical language, but I do understand that I am going crazy keeping my History open the whole time I am surfing the web, and frantically trying to keep ahead copying pages to Bookmarks before they get wiped out. Not a good place to be.

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If the removed pages are always older than a specific time range in the past (i.e you keep a few months or weeks) then it is more like that there is some cleanup software running.

You or someone else also may have deleted that older history if suddenly a lot has disappeared and not just a few pages.

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The time range has definitely changed. It was at 180 days plus, now it is down to about 4 and 1/2 months and decreasing all the time. During the past hour online, it has erased two days. It is happening progressively, I did not delete and no one else has access to this computer.