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History doesn't record all sites visited anymore.

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I've noticed over time that the History, or Library or whatever Mozilla wants to call the History, does not record all pages that are visited - and now it's getting worse and mixing pages up.

It's just been an annoyance until recently, but it has now caused me and my partner real issues, especially with his work.

Today it happened again but I have the time to actually come and tell someone about it in hopes that it actually gets fixed...

Here is what happened today, as happens all too frequently when I go to use the HISTORY function in Firefox accross multiple devices and installs over the past year or so;

I wanted to find a video I watched on youtube on the morning of the 7th November to show my friend, I know the title of it so I started typing it into the address bar to bring it up in the HISTORY but nothing appeared - here we go again I thought.

I might have thought maybe I misremembered the title if this had not happened multiple times already but I went through the motions anyway.

I know exactly when I watched it, so I opened the HISTORY and - because there is no ability to search for an actual date range for some daft reason - I started scrolling.

I got to the 7th, and there were videos I watched before, and videos I watched after, but not the video I was looking for - but there is a video I watched another day there in it's place.

So I opened youtube, went to my history there, scrolled back to the same videos, and sure enough, the video I am looking for is there and the video that is present in my HISTORY is not.

In the screen clippings attached, You can see that in my Firefox HISTORY and Youtube watch history match except for one thing, the 4 minute long "Contouring 101" video that I was originally looking for is present in my youtube watch history, but not on my Firefox HISTORY.

In it's place is a video titled "Life Changing, Tom Shares the Fight for his Life." - which is a 30 minute video I watched on the 31st of October - according to my youtube history and my memory - but not my Firefox HISTORY.

You can see the gap in my Firefox HISTORY where the "Contouring 101" video should be is just 5 minutes, makes sense it took me 5 mins to watch a 4:17 min video and then choose what to click on next, right?

I used to love the history function on browsers, years and years ago it was so good. Now it seems to just be an unmaintained afterthough with minimal functionality and no thought to accuracy.

is there any way we can go back to a accurate, concise and functional HISTORY? Or do I have to find another browser or third party solution?

Thanks for your time.

I've noticed over time that the History, or Library or whatever Mozilla wants to call the History, does not record all pages that are visited - and now it's getting worse and mixing pages up. It's just been an annoyance until recently, but it has now caused me and my partner real issues, especially with his work. Today it happened again but I have the time to actually come and tell someone about it in hopes that it actually gets fixed... Here is what happened today, as happens all too frequently when I go to use the HISTORY function in Firefox accross multiple devices and installs over the past year or so; I wanted to find a video I watched on youtube on the morning of the 7th November to show my friend, I know the title of it so I started typing it into the address bar to bring it up in the HISTORY but nothing appeared - here we go again I thought. I might have thought maybe I misremembered the title if this had not happened multiple times already but I went through the motions anyway. I know exactly when I watched it, so I opened the HISTORY and - because there is no ability to search for an actual date range for some daft reason - I started scrolling. I got to the 7th, and there were videos I watched before, and videos I watched after, but not the video I was looking for - but there is a video I watched another day there in it's place. So I opened youtube, went to my history there, scrolled back to the same videos, and sure enough, the video I am looking for is there and the video that is present in my HISTORY is not. In the screen clippings attached, You can see that in my Firefox HISTORY and Youtube watch history match except for one thing, the 4 minute long "Contouring 101" video that I was originally looking for is present in my youtube watch history, but not on my Firefox HISTORY. In it's place is a video titled "Life Changing, Tom Shares the Fight for his Life." - which is a 30 minute video I watched on the 31st of October - according to my youtube history and my memory - but not my Firefox HISTORY. You can see the gap in my Firefox HISTORY where the "Contouring 101" video should be is just 5 minutes, makes sense it took me 5 mins to watch a 4:17 min video and then choose what to click on next, right? I used to love the history function on browsers, years and years ago it was so good. Now it seems to just be an unmaintained afterthough with minimal functionality and no thought to accuracy. is there any way we can go back to a accurate, concise and functional HISTORY? Or do I have to find another browser or third party solution? Thanks for your time.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (8)

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Yes, and unless I have somehow missed the checkbox that says "Randomly forget some visited pages and incorrectly list others in their place" there is nothing there to help me.

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I have neither.

This is purely down to Firefox, I have ruled out all third party applications, addons and settings.

My partner first experienced this while having to prove workflow to a client on a new laptop, with a fresh barebones install of Windows10 and a fresh Firefox install used solely for that job. It was pure luck the CCTV in the room he was working that day was full colour HD and the screen was visible, otherwise he would have lost his job thanks to Firefox. He has since switched over to Chrome, even though he hates it, he needs software to be reliable in a network security testing environment.

My PC where I experienced it today is my streaming PC where I have multiple browsers, each with their own setup and addons for specific use cases, the version of Firefox I use through it on my connected TV has one addon that does nothing to the history, all it does is force a CSS overide on some sites - not Youtube.

I use the History function very often, at least once a day usually more, I do so because I aggregate a lot of content and often need to go back and find things again, usually I write down titles and then use the URL bar to bring them up from history, at least twice a month what I look for is not there.

I have noticed it getting increasingly worse since 2020, and since a recent update it has gotten worse AND started mixing the pages up.

If it were an addon causing the history not to record something, why would it record something else in its place?

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There is one setting, and it's "on".

Cookies wouldn't affect specific youtube pages like that, especially not one video among hundreds in a day.

I don't mean to be rude, but you have 3550 posts and 70 solutions, < 2%.

Meaning I'm going to need you to post another 47 random troubleshooting steps so that statistically one of them will be helpful.

Please don't recommend I switch to Edge.

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I have same problem. I met OP through Twitch today in her stream. She talked about the library not remember the sites she visited. I listen to short story audio book online and know titles of ones I like. I look for exact title in library but it is not there some times so I must scroll through 6000 title on site to find them again. It becomes more concerning recently with frequency. My work colleague had this problem too but changed to chrome because fire fox becomes unbearable on mobile devices.

I run Windows 10 and have download helper add-on but makes no difference if I uninstall it

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Diguan!!!

Good to see you friendo! Thank you for coming over to make a post about our problem, hopefully we can get this solved together. Looking forward to seeing you in stream again soon!




Dropa,

Imagine you had a car with a broken top gear, you take it to a garage for help and a person claiming to be a mechanic wanders in off the street and decides to try and fix your car. You tell them "hey, my top gear is failing I want to know how to fix it" and the first thing they do is tell you how to change gears.

Then you say, "no, I know how to change gears, I drove it here, I just want to fix the problem with my top gear" and the mechanic then tells you no, you need to remove the trailer and roof box.

You have to say, "I don't have a trailer or roof box, I just want to fix my top gear" to which the mechanic asks for a picture of the gear stick and tells you to make sure the engine oil is topped up.

At this point you get frustrated and point out that the mechanic is not a mechanic, they are a random guy off the street, and that you can see every single car they have ever worked on just sitting there. They have tried to fix thousands of cars and managed to solve the problem on less than 2% of them by making dozens of random suggestions until something works purely by chance.

(Or someone gives up and marks your answer as a solution even though it very obviously isn't - they even say as much in their next post - we can read everything you have posted /en-US/user/Dropa/answers my dude, I always do my due dilligence on where information comes from.)

If you don't know, admit you don't know, it's fine. Just don't waste my time making me come back to check on replies that are completely useless to me.

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I have found more people with the same problem, posts dating back to june-august 2019 all saying the same thing; sites that should be in history are not recorded by Firefox.

This is definitely a Mozilla problem. I have spent the past few days running a simple script I managed to cobble together with what little js I learned in college and help from my partner as he actually knows how to code. On my old laptop with a fresh windows 10 and Firefox install, I have it set up so it basically plays through random youtube videos that are between 1 and 5 minutes long at x2 speed recording the URLS and timestamps. I then check the Firefox history and the scripts records match, just by opening both next to each other and making sure the entries line up to start with, but after the first couple hours my partner coded something that does it for me and automagically spits out which videos Firefox missed.

I ran it through 600 random short videos to start with, out of those 600 videos the Firefox history did not record 2 of the visited pages, but worked to record the other 598 fine. I then ran it again last night before settled down for the evening watching TV in bed and it only got through around 100 videos before I noticed the output was showing 2 more videos were missing from the History that were recorded as watched by the script.

These are all youtube videos, all on a "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=******" URL, all have the exact same permissions and cookie settings etc, and all are showing up in the Youtube watch history for the account I used to run the experiment.

Firefox is definitely doing something wrong.

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If your searches, websites you've visited, or other activity don't appear in My Activity, make sure that: You're signed in. Activity is saved only when you're signed in to your Google Account. Your device is online.

Regards, James

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This has nothing to do with google or my activity, those things have not been mentioned once this entire thread....