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Why Firefox suddenly start to delete my history before 3 months ago
This story is a bit long, but please be patient. I have used firefox for over 10 years, it can keep about a year's or 1.5 year's history (randomly expiration). So, I sav… (read more)
This story is a bit long, but please be patient.
I have used firefox for over 10 years, it can keep about a year's or 1.5 year's history (randomly expiration). So, I save places.sqlite per half year if I remember.
I have so many places.sqlite's backups. These backups proved that, in the past, firefox only delete some "expired" history records about one year ago or earlier in these years.
But suddenly Firefox started to only keep history in 3 months.
I save my profile in a path : "C:\Users\Admin\Documents\Firefox" and use -profile C:\Users\Admin\Documents\Firefox in shortcut.
And let's tell what happened(a bit complicated.)
I installed windows 10 in 24, July, in another harddisk. I entered the new windows, installed a firefox, and used my old profile as usual. It looks normal, until I returned to my old Windows 10, I noticed that, my history is kept for only three months and the left is gone.
I first thought that, the version in the new windows had wrong settings and deleted the old history, so I restored the backup, which is 2021.6.4-2022.7.24. But Firefox continued to delete my old "expired" history, after a while. This never happened before. (I am still in old windows now, from now on everything happened in old Windows 10)
Ok, I assumed that the new firefox in new windows 10 "comtaminated" my whole profile. After a really hard try I still can't find out what is the comtamination. So I created a brand new profile, copied:
all extensions and its settings, cookies, passwords, etc. just a few json and sqlite files.
And then I recovered the places.sqlite with my 2021.6.4-2022.7.24 version, which has about 60,000+ history.
And---guess what, firefox still deleted my old history.
This never happened before, for so many years.
Firefox used to delete "expired" history, that's true, but still can keep more than a year's records. But since I installed the new windows everything changed. I don't know why, and I don't even know their correlation between all these things.
I have to keep history more than a year because I need to check many records. 3 months is unacceptable.
Version: 102; which is months ago's version but it still delete my history! Actually I tried 100-104, same results.
I tried every possible idea, but it just delete my old history.
In conclusion, since the firefox(not international version, but local version by our country's official web) "comtaminated" my profile, I can no longer return the status that firefox keeps more than 1 years's record. I tried all possible methods, for example make a clean new firefox and only put my old places.sqlite(2021.6.4-2022.7.24) inside, but it just delete it to only 3 months left.
Everything sounds like magic. But I am a programmer too, and I don't believe magic. I checked the source code of history expiration. (decko-dev )(Yes, it doesn't have anyway to absolutely ensure preventing from deleting, but I can't find any code that just precisely keep 90 days' history, either.) I am not sure whether I found the right place.
My questions are below: 1. If firefox doesn't keep so many records all the time, then why I have so many backups with more than a timespan of 1+ years in these years(from firefox 20+ to now)? I used firefox for many years, I changed my profile or create new profile for so many times with so many versions, but none of them delete my history only 3 months left, at least give me one year+ left. 2.Did I correctly find the correct source code? 3.What triggered the firefox started to delete my "expired" history so precisely, only 90 days left? 4.I need a method to return to before 24.June, the time firefox history manager works well.
I am not local, so some words may be wierd, please forgive me. Any any information will help.