Are websites you visit being displayed in the history window (Ctrl+Shift+H) and only disappearing once you close Firefox, or do they not appear there at all?

If Firefox won't collect new history despite being set to "Remember history," the problem may be with inability to access or read/write the Places database files that store history and bookmarks.

First, if you haven't already, please do a normal shutdown and/or restart of your system. Restarting Windows can help by freeing up locked files, completing any deferred updates, and resolving temporary file permission issues.

Next, if Firefox still has bookmark/history problems, could you let us know what you get when you run the "Verify Integrity" diagnosis and repair function. That's here:

Open Firefox's Troubleshooting Information page using any of these methods:

• "3-bar" menu button > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > More Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

Near the bottom, there is a section titled Places Database -- that's the file which stores history and bookmarks. Click the button labeled Verify Integrity. There may be a 10-15 second delay before results appear.

If all is well, the report that appears below the button should start with:

> Task: checkIntegrity
+ The places.sqlite database is sane
+ The favicons.sqlite database is sane
> Task: invalidateCaches
+ The caches have been invalidated
> Task: checkCoherence
+ The database is coherent

Does yours say the two database files are "sane", or something else? You can select and copy the report, and then paste it into a reply for review and comment.

Note: it's possible that you have an extra toolbar with the message in the title of the following article. It's still worth trying the above steps first since they are less drastic. Fix "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional" error message

To t.r.ernst No, nothing is displayed in the history window (Ctrl+Shift+H). Nothing from earlier sessions and it has stopped collecting newly visited sites, too.

To jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

I have shut down and restarted the laptop a few times already since this happened; in fact it happened after a restart two days ago.

This is the result of my "verify integrity":

> Task: checkIntegrity - Unable to check places.sqlite integrity: Error: Error(s) encountered during statement execution: > Task: checkCoherence - The task queue was cleared by an error in another task. > Task: expire - The task queue was cleared by an error in another task. > Task: vacuum - The task queue was cleared by an error in another task. > Task: stats - The task queue was cleared by an error in another task. > Task: _refreshUI - The task queue was cleared by an error in another task.

I would be grateful for your further advice.

To conclude this, I now have two Firefox windows open on my computer. The one still has no bookmarks and does not remember history (but shows "recently closed tabs), the other one behaves "normally". I am on different profiles and dare not close the weird one, lest all my open tabs will go with it. How that happened in the first place is unclear. It happened after a restart. As so often, MS seems to have installed "updates" then without asking or informing the paying customer. I suspect they messed it up (they definitely keep messing up their own software products all the time). Anyway, sorted....

Apologies for missing this one:

This is the result of my "verify integrity": > Task: checkIntegrity - Unable to check places.sqlite integrity: Error: Error(s) encountered during statement execution:

I haven't seen that one. There is supposed to be more detail after that colon (as shown in the source code) but we don't have that extra information.

Considering your newer report --

To conclude this, I now have two Firefox windows open on my computer. The one still has no bookmarks and does not remember history (but shows "recently closed tabs), the other one behaves "normally". I am on different profiles and dare not close the weird one, lest all my open tabs will go with it. How that happened in the first place is unclear. It happened after a restart.

Do you want to migrate the open tabs, or recently closed tabs, from the broken profile to the working profile? Sync can share open tabs between profiles, but recently closed tabs are not included. You could reopen those tabs first. Alternately, you might be able to use an extension to export them (I'm not sure which session management extensions have that feature). Alternately, you could use my Scrounger tool to convert a copy of your session history file to a page of clickable links.

In case you want to try the Scrounger:

(1) To open your profile folder...

In the broken profile with the tabs to be saved, open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either

• "3-bar" menu button > Help > More Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > More Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, find the Profile Folder row and click the "Open Folder" button. This should launch Windows' File Explorer listing the contents of your current profile folder.

(2) Copy out current session history files

In your profile folder, double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Copy/paste the recovery.jsonlz4 file to somewhere more convenient, such as your desktop. For reference, the kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:

• recovery.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
• recovery.baklz4: a backup copy of recovery.jsonlz4
• previous.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
• upgrade.jsonlz4-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update

(3) File Contents Extraction

These compressed files are a pain to view, so I created a tool on my website to list out their contents. If you want to try that, you can drag and drop it onto the large box on the following page, then click the "Scrounge URLs" button:

• https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html -or-
• https://jscher2000.github.io/Firefox-File-Utilities/scrounger.html

The list should be organized as follows:

• Open Windows, Open tabs with back-forward history, Closed tabs
• Saved/Closed Tab Groups (if any)
• Closed Windows

If you don't get a list within 15 seconds, that probably means the script is caught in a loop. You may need to close the tab to avoid a tab crash and then try again in a new tab.

Assuming you do get a useful list, use the "Save List" button to archive it as a web page of clickable links for future reference.