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Firefox has deleted all history inexplicibly. Did not update, nor refresh.

  • 4 பதிலளிப்புகள்
  • 2 இந்த பிரச்னைகள் உள்ளது
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

My firefox default page suddenly got scrambled. Top sites got completely reset and my highlights were changed to seemingly random pages. I checked my history for the pages listed in highlights and they were pages I had visited on the 25th of January, which is not recent. They also seemed to not update when I visit new sites which it usually does. I then noticed the history does not have any entries newer than 25th of January. And going to new pages does not get registered in the history.

I restarted in troubleshooting mode and history started to register again, but now it has deleted everything in my history. Logged in accounts and passwords seem to be unaffected. Same for bookmarks.

What happened? How can I fix this? Can I regain my lost history?

I tried an idea I read where renamed places.sqlite to places.sqlite.old and places.sqlite.corrupt to places.sqlite.corrupt which restored the situation to the first situation, where the history is frozen at 25th of January and does not update.

My firefox default page suddenly got scrambled. Top sites got completely reset and my highlights were changed to seemingly random pages. I checked my history for the pages listed in highlights and they were pages I had visited on the 25th of January, which is not recent. They also seemed to not update when I visit new sites which it usually does. I then noticed the history does not have any entries newer than 25th of January. And going to new pages does not get registered in the history. I restarted in troubleshooting mode and history started to register again, but now it has deleted everything in my history. Logged in accounts and passwords seem to be unaffected. Same for bookmarks. What happened? How can I fix this? Can I regain my lost history? I tried an idea I read where renamed places.sqlite to places.sqlite.old and places.sqlite.corrupt to places.sqlite.corrupt which restored the situation to the first situation, where the history is frozen at 25th of January and does not update.

dogmar45 மூலமாக திருத்தப்பட்டது

All Replies (4)

If you have sync, and there is a problem anywhere, Shut Down Sync Immediately On All Devices to prevent the problem from spreading. Once the problem is fixed, perform the same repair on all computers/profiles before using sync again.


[v57+] Places Maintenance is built into Firefox.

Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

You will find Places Database near the bottom. Press the Verify Integrity button.

If any errors are reported, check this link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-bookmarks-and-history-will-not-be-functional

The places.sqlite file contains your History and Bookmarks. And it looks like it is corrupted.

Type about:support<enter> in the address bar.

Under the page logo on the left side, you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To its right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Locate the above file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox. The browser should then create a new place.sqlite and recover your bookmarks from the backup files.

Note: Your history is not backed up and will be lost.

Hi FredMcD

I am not running Sync, if you mean Firefox Sync.

When I verify integrity I get the following output: I am now in the "mode" where history recording has resume but deleted everything. > 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 > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 5120KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 5120KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 5120KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 29216KiB + pragma_user_version is 54 + pragma_page_size is 32768 + pragma_cache_size is -2048 + pragma_journal_mode is wal + pragma_synchronous is 1 + History can store a maximum of 112348 unique pages + Table moz_origins has 55 records + Table moz_places has 110 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 63 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 61 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 0 records + Table moz_keywords has 0 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 1 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 1 records + Table moz_annos has 2 records + Table moz_items_annos has 0 records + Table moz_meta has 4 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index moz_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_places_originidindex + Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex + Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex + Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex > Task: _refreshUI

So the ultimate conclusion is that my history is gone and there is no way to restore it? This is incredibly disappointing considering I did literally nothing to cause this.

i've heard of this losing history problem before but havent experienced it yet.

Perhaps, you can search other threads on this topic to see if there is a solution.

Also, perhaps a windows7 restore point might help restore the functionality you had prior to machine going coo coo.

If you want to execute the above, first upload your current user data to the FF sync account.

Looks that the places.sqlite database is corrupted.

If you use Sync then best is to disconnect Sync temporarily during troubleshooting.

This can be caused by a problem with the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite databases in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page

If errors are reported with "Verify Integrity", close and restart Firefox or reboot and retry.

If "Verify Integrity" cannot repair places.sqlite, rename/remove all places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

  • keep a backup copy of places.sqlite in case a new places.sqlite database has to be created

You lose the history when a new places.sqlite is created.

See also:

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.