Is there a way to restore history other than places.sqlite?
Summary: I would like to recover lost history links
It looks like the (usually perfect) CCleaner Windows utility cleared all of my Firefox history. I also just did a Windows Update but I don't think that did it. This was a very focused cleansing. In places.sqlite, the table moz_historyvisits is empty. Neither mos-places nor moz_bookmarks reference any of the sites that I've visited.
I really don't understand how that happened. I did not do a purge or reset or any other Firefox operation. I do not have any addons that purge history. The last Firefox update was several days ago. For purposes now that's not relevant.
I looked in the bookmarkbackups folder and got yesterday's backup, but that file only has bookmarks, no history. (I searched for title text from a site that I visited yesterday and it wasn't there.)
Question 1 : Aside from local user-managed backups, is there any other place where I might find a copy of places.sqlite and/or all of the history links?
Question 2 : I'd like to understand why there is a bookmarkbackups folder, but not a historybackups folder. I'm guessing this is related to security, but we don't even have the option.
Question 3 : Maybe I'm missing something or looking in the wrong place. Is there an option to save history somewhere? There are a lot of addons to clear history, but I don't see one for saving it.
Question 4 : I haven't looked in my Android folders yet (I need root access or a remote explorer to see the Firefox data (sigh) ) ... Does anyone know if there might be a backup of history in my phone from that app?
I posted another note in the forum area for Sync to see if there might be a backup of my history still available on a server which was shared with my Firefox/Android app.
Thanks
Tony மூலமாக திருத்தப்பட்டது
தீர்வு தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்டது
Firefox does its best to detect corruption and move the old file out the way and to create a new one. Unfortunately, if there's other apps that are locking the file or playing around with it, that might be defeating Firefox's protections.
We've added more checks in in recent versions, but we might need to be doing a little bit more yet.
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (6)
Q1: Other backups?
Firefox doesn't make backups of places.sqlite. However, Windows may have made a shadow copy of places.sqlite when doing its last update. These are stashed in restore points, but to avoid making the problem worse, do not use the system restore feature!! Instead, you can use a utility program to read inside and export files from restore points. This thread has the steps: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1245672#answer-1186231
Q2: Why no history-backups?
I don't know.
Q3: Way to save history?
You would need an extension or an external program.
Q4: Backup on Android?
I don't know.
By the way, in your profile folder, do you see a places.sqlite-corrupt file? Sometimes it isn't really corrupt, but was locked by a different process (like CCleaner?) so Firefox assumed it was corrupt and created a new one.
@cor-el : Thank you but I have file history turned off ... might need to change that. @jscher2000 : You led me in a good direction. In fact you DID answer the question about restoring history. Thanks. I opened the last 5 restore points and opened the places.sqlite file in DB Browser for SQLite. For all of them no bookmarks or history can be seen. PRAGMA integrity_check (documented here ) shows a slew of errors. Queries on tables return "database disk image is malformed".
Being a geek I was tempted to attempt a recovery as documented here documented here, but to close this one off quickly I'd rather just get a clean export of bookmarks, create a new profile, and start from scratch.
For Mozilla/Firefox Support : Note that the app will continue to function with a heavily corrupted database like this. That's not good. I understand there are privacy issues with leaving backups of places.sqlite on the disk, but please give us the option. And then please add an option to check the database on startup or shutdown of the app, and then to replace the .sqlite file if corruption is found.
Could this be a cause of random system pauses, long delays in page loads and the system in general? I hope someone looks at this as a possible source of such mystery issues.
Any other suggestions? I'll close this thread sometime in the next week.
Tony மூலமாக திருத்தப்பட்டது
தீர்வு தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்டது
Firefox does its best to detect corruption and move the old file out the way and to create a new one. Unfortunately, if there's other apps that are locking the file or playing around with it, that might be defeating Firefox's protections.
We've added more checks in in recent versions, but we might need to be doing a little bit more yet.