607211 - History is not working in Firefox 3.6.11 it is empty

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[gaylon_dunn]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.11) Gecko/20101012 Firefox/3.6.11
Build Identifier: 3.6.11

History is not working in Firefox 3.6.11 it is empty. I have two computers one with Win7 and one with XP, on upgrading to Firefox 3.6.11 history in both is gone. When you do show all history from the menu it comes up empty. I filed this on the user forum last week so far 11 people have reported the same issue.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.start firefox 3.6.11
2.open show history it is empty
3.

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

We have noticed some user has issues with a new version of the database engine.
first of all please try safe mode (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode) so we can exclude that this is caused by some add-on.

In case that doesn't help could you please send me places.sqlite file from your profile folder _BY MAIL_, it contains your history and bookmarks thus don't attach it to the bug. I'd like to check why some database has issues with 3.6.11 while most don't, but we still miss a database to debug the issue.

Thanks

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

this ended being a bit different from what I was expecting, there is a real database corruption in the file, visible executing a PRAGMA integrity_check;

*** in database main ***
On tree page 1323 cell 71: 2nd reference to page 2690
On tree page 1323 cell 71: Child page depth differs
On tree page 1323 cell 72: Child page depth differs
On tree page 23 cell 81: 2nd reference to page 3330
On tree page 23 cell 81: Child page depth differs
On tree page 23 cell 82: Child page depth differs
Page 2873 is never used
Page 2933 is never used
Page 3140 is never used

Since you told me this db has been copied months ago across 2 computers, and now both show the issue, I can just think that the db was already corrupt months ago and sqlite 3.7.x has made the corruption more visible by reindexing some table. It is indeed quite rare that 2 boxes could show the same file corruption.

You can apply the workaround I suggested you by mail to recover a clean database with your bookmarks (thus rename places.sqlite and start Firefox, losing history), there is no easy way to fix this database sadly.

Comment 3

[gaylon_dunn]

Thanks. I removed the places.sqlite file and history is now working again. 

My concern here is that it is obvious that the file was corrupt long ago but still functioned until the 3.6.11 release. There are no errors reported to the user even in the 3.6.11 release On the user forum there are now 15 people with this issue in just over a week and I would guess that they represent just a tiny % of the people with the problem that took the time to look for a fix. The fix is not complicated but probably above the average user. Since most people will just ignore the problem and/or change to another product there really should be a more robust error checking/correcting process in the code for these types of issues.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I see you concern. We can't fix the database but for sure we can have better notifications when that happens (any notification actually).

Comment 5

[jeff givens]

I too am suffering this. Across several different machines this is happening. On this particular one, other profiles don't have the issue.

places.sqlite says 'not OK' when an integrity check is done. Deleting this file makes no difference (bookmarks are NOT lost).

Safe mode makes no difference. 3.6.12.

Comment 6

[Tim (fmdeveloper)]

Closing bug as WFM - if you are still experiencing this issue or have more information to provide feel free to post back here and we can re-open the bug. You can also get assistance by visiting the Firefox help site -> https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/ask