Firefox – Why Address Bar Completes with Absent History Content

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I have set Firefox to complete the address bar with elements from the history only ( other options are: nothing, bookmarks, and a history+bookmarks).

However, Firefox still continues to complete the address bar with elements that are no longer in my history. A search in the history returns 0 result for the incriminated string. How can I solve this without loosing my entire history? I have already tried shift+delete on the elements I would like to delete, without success.

How can I find the source of a certain completion ? (like an SQL request in the sqlite3 files used to store history)

I'm using Firefox 16.0.2 on OS X 10.8.2.

Best Answer

For some unknown reason, certain URL are absent in the history, but are still used to autocomplete the address bar.

The raw information is stored in a file places.sqlite in the Firefox user directory.

Locate it, quit Firefox, and run this command to locate places containing the URL you don't manage to delete within Firefox, 

$ sqlite3 places.sqlite 'SELECT *  FROM moz_places WHERE  moz_places.url LIKE "%example.com%"'

The following command will remove the URL you want Firefox to forget:

$ sqlite3 places.sqlite 'DELETE  FROM moz_places WHERE  moz_places.url LIKE "%example.com%"'

This request is incomplete as it leaves the moz_historyvisits table inconsistent. Feel free to improve it.

Hosts are also kept in the moz_hosts table, in places.sqlite and will be used for autocompleting.

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