All of my browsing history has been gone...

Chipy

Hi there,

just realized that after one of the last updates my history is randomly gone. I had like more than 2 or 3 years of browsing history and even checked it some days ago.

Now, I can access only till last friday, 3rd of november.

I'm using version 6.4.3160.38 snapshot (64-Bit).

Thanks in advance for any help.

ugly

I've had this issue for a while. My history only shows the last day, even though I've never deleted my history.

I did copy my current history file into the profile of a standalone version of an older version of Vivaldi, and it did seem to show all my old history, and the new history. So my guess is that Vivaldi is actually storing the history, but there is some bug in how the history is displayed.

mib3berlin

@Chipy
Hi, as @ugly mention, try to change the view to List.
How big is your History file in your profile?
The path to the profile is published in File > Help > About
I save 3 month and it is 35 MB.

Cheers, mib

Chipy

@mib3berlin said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@Chipy
Hi, as @ugly mention, try to change the view to List.
How big is your History file in your profile?
The path to the profile is published in File > Help > About
I save 3 month and it is 35 MB.

Cheers, mib

Thanks for your reply, @ugly & @mib3berlin .

Damn, I found a database file "history" yesterday, but it's only 4,9 MB.
So my browsing history apparently disappeared after a current update or maybe a crash?

But I have synchronization turned on since ever.
So any chance to restore anything?

mib3berlin

@Chipy
Hm, the history is not synced, only the typed history.
If you don't have a backup of your profile the history is lost, I fear.

Chipy

@mib3berlin DAMN!
I've never made a backup of the profile folder, because from the experience I had I've never thought something bad can happen to the files. But how it's possible that everything just get lost?

Maybe my path is wrong: /home/chipy/.config/vivaldi_snapshot/default ?!

Shouldn't it be better to create a new file instead of just overwritting it?

My tabs are still there.

Apparently, I'm not the only one experiencing this issue.

EDIT:
Can I restore the loss if I have at least different saved sessions?

Pathduck

@Chipy Are you sure it's gone and not just displaying the last 7 days?

Chipy

@Pathduck I went through the speed dial and the calendar appeared. Normally, I could go back for month and years. Last night I realized I can just see only the last week.

Pathduck

@Chipy In the History tab you can select:

List displays all entries.

You can download the sqlite3 tools and count the number of entries:

λ sqlite3 History "select count(*) from visits;"
100929

The browser has to be closed or you have to make a copy of the file first, as it's locked.

ugly

@mib3berlin said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@Chipy
Hi, as @ugly mention, try to change the view to List.
How big is your History file in your profile?

For reference, I don't think I've deleted my history since my first install of the tech preview (or maybe when I switched to Linux a year or so later). List view will only show the last day or last two days. My history file is 812.5MB. So, it appears that @Chipy has another issue than what I, and I think a few others, have seen with how history is displayed.

Chipy

@Pathduck said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@Chipy In the History tab you can select:

List displays all entries.

You can download the sqlite3 tools and count the number of entries:
λ sqlite3 History "select count(*) from visits;"
100929
The browser has to be closed or you have to make a copy of the file first, as it's locked.

Thanks for your reply.
Actually, I know there're the different options to select, i. e. list, day, ...

I'll try sqlite3 later at home.

As I told already before, yesterday I found a file called "history", but it's only 4,9 MB.

Chipy

@ugly said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@mib3berlin said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@Chipy
Hi, as @ugly mention, try to change the view to List.
How big is your History file in your profile?

For reference, I don't think I've deleted my history since my first install of the tech preview (or maybe when I switched to Linux a year or so later). List view will only show the last day or last two days. My history file is 812.5MB. So, it appears that @Chipy has another issue than what I, and I think a few others, have seen with how history is displayed.

DAMN!!!
I'm quite sure I've never deleted my history since my first install. I checked it history some weeks ago & could go back to the really beginning in maybe 2018.

BUT: The history file I found yesterday is only only 4,9 MB.
So I fear, my browser history has been gone - although I had synchronization turned on and there are also several saved sessions.

But how is it possible that especially and apparently only the history file corrupted somehow, meanwhile all the other files are quite well?!

DoctorG

@Chipy Unfortunately broken data can happen.

Vivaldi Sync is not a replacement for regular/daily backups of your Linux user data.

I feel with you.

Chipy

@DoctorG said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@Chipy Unfortunately broken data can happen.

Vivaldi Sync is not a replacement for regular/daily backups of your Linux user data.

I feel with you.

DoctorG

@Chipy I remember in the past there was some loss of history with Snapshots, but i do not remember which version. As this did not happen in the Stable, i never gave attention, and could not report to bugtracker as i had no reproducible steps and there was no crashlog.
Snapshot are mostly usable, but not rock-stable.
⇒ https://vivaldi.com/blog/snapshot-vs-stable

And i can tell that a Snapshot can crash and lead to dataloss; as a internal volunteer tester i use the Vivaldi 6.5 Nightly all the day and always backup data before updates and testing.

Chipy

@Pathduck said in All of my browsing history has been gone...:

@Chipy In the History tab you can select:

List displays all entries.

You can download the sqlite3 tools and count the number of entries:
λ sqlite3 History "select count(*) from visits;"
100929
The browser has to be closed or you have to make a copy of the file first, as it's locked.

It's really gone.

λ sqlite3 History "select count(*) from visits;"
2797

The first entry is now from last friday, 4 PM.

Chipy

By the way:
The file "favicons" still exists & has 144,9 MB.
So weird that only history has been gone...

Chipy

Ok, guys, I don't have any idea at all, BUT:
My history is back!!! Everything is there again.
The history file suddenly grew to 11,3 MB.

Also this results in much more entries:

λ sqlite3 History "select count(*) from visits;"
22492

I can go back now to July 2017. So the first entry is now July, 22nd.
I see, that there are some blank spaces, i. e, in past october - and I'm quiet sure, I worked a lot using Vivaldi the last month.

But anyway, I can survive this small loss - at least better than a whole loss.

Chipy

Well, just to update you, guys:
Unfortunately, my laptop crashed again some day last week.

After restarting Vivladi suddenly there're even more entries in history again.

λ sqlite3 History "select count(*) from visits;"
60000

All blank spaces I saw before, i. e, in october 2023, are gone.
Now there're 10637 page views and 4461 pages - just in past october...

Where does Vivaldi get this data back from, especially if it appeared to be gone for a several time?

Zalex108

@Chipy

For the moment I recommend you to start backing up your Profile,
After that, continue with the History problem or would be worst, even more if the computer crashes.

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