IE 9 missing URLs in history

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Recently I noticed that some (many) of the sites I’ve visited are not appearing in the history.

Read some other posts elsewhere but no real solution other than to “maybe” find them in the Local – Low folder.

Have tried resetting IE 9 but did not resolve the problem.

I do (did) have prior history folders (until IE reset) – Last week, two weeks ago, etc. but they also did not have complete listings of sites that I knew I had visited.

Am not using In-Private Browsing which should not be saving a history anyway.

Have been using IE since inception and the history has always worked correctly but it is not behaving correctly in IE 9.

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, Have not yet upgraded to SP1 until Susan Bradley says OK, but others elsewhere seem to be experiencing this problem after installing SP1.

Are other experiencing missing sites in their histories? If not then it must be my install and not IE 9 and will reinstall. However, other posts elsewhere appear to suggest there might be a problem.

Thanks for any insight,

Geoff

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Sue Bradley did give the Ok for SP1. Can’t help with the other problem.

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If you run any system cleaning applications such as Ccleaner check the settings to make sure it is not removing IE history.

Joe

--Joe

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Am familiar with CC Cleaner and have not run it in the affected machine. It is not as if the URL’s are being erased, they are not showing up in the history. If I go to three separate sites, some or none appear in the history immediately after the visits. Throughout the day, I generally visit many sites but only a few are listed for the day. One would think it’s too simple, visit a site or sites, check history, are they in the list? For me no.

The question is are others unaware that there histories are not complete since they do not check and would not notice. Or on the contrary, the history is working fine and mine is broken for whatever reason.

Has anyone else noticed that their histories are not complete in IE9 Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.

(Was having a problem in Quickbooks where an email link was automatically added to any invoice created even though the default check box was not selected for this. In other words, the checkbox was not staying checked from restarts of Quickbooks. Spent much time searching the internet and others were experiencing similar problems, tracked down and monitored QB ini files to troubleshoot. Finally, Inutuit admitted the problem and pushed a fix.)

So, rather than spending much time troubleshooting the problem as I did with QB above, I was trying to get a consensus whether other’s histories in IE 9 are working properly and if not then IE 9 might have a problem; otherwise I might have a corrupt install.

Am liking IE9’s interface and speed, but can roll it back, reinstall IE9, use Chrome, etc, but would like to know if anyone else has noticed a problem with the histories IE9.

Thanks again for an insight.

Geoff

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Are you running the 32-bit IE9 or 64-bit IE9 or switching between the two?

Joe

--Joe

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Hi Joe,

Have been running only 32-bit version, and have not run or tested the 64-bit version for any problems.

I will test the 64-bit to see if any difference.

Thanks for the pointer.

Geoff

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To follow-up, I just test IE 9 64-bit and loaded 4 or 5 separate web sites and experienced the same behavior of the sites not appearing in the history folder although a few of the sites visited earlier today do show-up in both.

I am really trying to confirm that no one else is experiencing this problem before I jump thru the hoops of uninstall, reinstall, etc.

Just call me lazy (I mean too busy on business tasks).

Geoff

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You should avoid the 65-bit IE9. Most addins have not been upgraded to 64-bit . You’ll have problems with some sites. Also, the 64-bit version has not yet been optimized for performance the way the 32-bit version has.

BTW, I don’t appear to have any issues with History. But I will admit I seldom reference it and would probably not remember sites after a few hours.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks for the reply Joe,

I only use the 32-bit of IE9. Only tested 64-bit to determine history issues, which persist.

Well it looks like a reinstall is in order.

Geoff

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If you uninstall IE9, IE8 will automatically be reinstalled. You could see if the problem is resolved in IE8. However, I suspect that some registry setting was changed and will remain changed even after IE8 is restored.

Joe

--Joe

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I have been experiencing this problem, also. I uninstalled IE9, intending to re-install it, but have been playing with IE8 first and see the same problem. Only one of several sites I visited today appears in my history, along with some local files which appear under Computer. If I re-visit that site (http://www.internano.org), with the History panel open, and browse to new pages, they are correctly added to the History. But other sites I browse to are not added.

I tried moving the Temporary Internet Files folder via the IE9 Options menu, but it makes no difference.

Looking back over the last 3 weeks history, only a few sites appear although I visit many daily. Even if I go back to a site that stored properly 2 weeks ago, it does not store the history today (with the one exception noted above).
If I look in C:Users {username} AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsHistory where this stuff should be stored, I only see icons for Computer and the site (Internano) that happens to work today. Visiting other sites doen’t seem to be create the necessary trail. They are, by the way, available to reopen if I close the browser and then reopen the last session.

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I have managed to get IE9 to start keeping correct history files again. I wish I could say I knew exactly how, but I don’t. Here are some clues, however.

I believe the problem is due to corrupt index.dat files. Windows 7 ( and probably any other fairly recent version) uses a bunch of these for keeping track of IE history, autocomplete, RSS feeds, etc., and it seems to get confused sometimes. You will find a bunch of them for each user. One would think that if you deleted History files and/or changed the History storage locations in IE9’s options, an old corrupted file would be irrelevant, but this does not seem to be the case! At any rate, I found a free tool which makes it a bit easier to locate and explore these files.

It’s called Index.Dat analyzer, and is available for free from:
http://www.systenance.com/indexdat.php

The interface is not exactly intuitive, and it’s easy to delete more than you intended to, but it seems to have done the job, and all you have to lose is some history you’ve been havng trouble with anyway! In my case, I was playing with an older history file– it had no entries for the last 4 months or so, since I changed history file locations hoping to fix this problem. Since it was all old news, I tried to delete all the entries– not the file itself– by selecting “check all” and then “delete checked files”. It couldn’t do it, and kept giving me index errors (requiring me to kill the program). I could restart the program and delete entries a few at a time, but it took surprisingly long and didn’t help with the original problem. So I’m pretty sure this file was corrupt, and somehow still in the history loop. I used a command window to remove it altogether. (It’s a hidden file, so you need /a:h swithches on the dir command to see it and the del command to erase it). Then I tried IE9 again and found that today’s history is being recorded properly, hurray!

I did a few other things while messing around with all this, so I can’t be sure that was the exact solution, unfortunately. I used process explorer to find out what processes were accessing my index.dat files, for example. (available from MS Technet, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653) I was surprised to find an Adobe Updater running in the background that was using these files, so I killed its process, for example. I also deleted the history items that were in the folder with the offending index.dat file (I’m not sure what their correct name is, they appear in the graphical Windows Explorer view of the directory, with calendar icons and names like “Last Week” and “Today” correspoding to the headings in the IE9 History panel.

Sorry I don’t have a cleaner description of my solution, but hey, at least it should give you hope that the problem can be fixed without migrating everything to a new user profile, or some equally annoying alternative.

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I have found that Privacy Mantraseems to allow the index.dat file to be deleted so that Windows will build a new index.dat file.

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Did all the above with no success. Deleted all my index.dat files with index.dat analizer and that did not work. Finaly did the following steps and it fixed it. Tool > Internet options > Browsing History > Settings > Change to Never; Change to 251 megs from 250 or anything different; Change “Keep in history” to something different. Click Ok > Apply. Reopen Settings and change back if you wish. I also opened up the move folder selection, but did not moved it. Switched around a few directories and closed it. Restated Ie9 and it works perfect now. IE9 V 9.0.8112.16421; Update Version 9.0.3 32bit Window Vista Home Basic. Hope this helps.

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… Tool > Internet options > Browsing History > Settings > Change to Never; Change to 251 megs from 250 or anything different; Change “Keep in history” to something different. Click Ok > Apply. Reopen Settings and change back if you wish. I also opened up the move folder selection, but did not moved it. Switched around a few directories and closed it. Restated Ie9 and it works perfect now…

Thanks techguy.
That seems to have done the trick for me, too!
Using IE9 64bit

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Click on Internet Options, Security, UNCLICK the ‘danged’ Enable Protected Mode. Close your browser and reopen a new one.

I had done this awhile ago, after spending hours and hours trying to figure it out. Then I recloned my hard drive the other day and had no more history to be found. I just had to remember the ‘easy’ fix. I run, as I guess most people do, several virus/malware programs, and basically feel they provide more protection anyway.

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Here is the solution (found elsewhere on Internet): Goto Tools, Internet Options, tab Content, Autocomplete Setting, make sure that only “Address bar” is ticked. Done!

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