IE9 Browsing History not working (using Win7 x64bit) - Help please

[Larry71]

Had the same problem, history was not being stored, seemed random.
IE9 32 bit; Windows 7 Enterprise, 32 bit.
Dislike the handle but Mr. Hole's :huh: suggestion was about right...
Browsing history had nowhere to go due to IE index.dat being out of room for storage; apparently when history has become "maxxed out" it will not delete older history, rather it simply will not store more pages.
Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Browsing History > Settings - decrease number of days to keep history (I had 60 days because I reference my history a lot. Not sure what the default number is). Decreased it to 55 days arbitrarily.
Click OK > Click OK, and that's it. Pages now correctly being tracked under history.
Keep up the good work.

 

[SpewHole]

Do not delete you index.dat file. It will corrupt your OS by causing unindexed temporary internet files which will eventually cause logical errors with your hard drive.

 

[badwhippet]

Thank you SpewHole!

I have been searching in vain for a solution for why IE9 is only keeping a very selective and minimal list of history, and have seen a relentless list of settings to try, tools to install promising to fix the index.dat file, and instructions on uninstalling IE9, suggestions to revert to IE8 for a period etc etc (the list goes on).

Simply setting my history from the default 30 days down to 20, everything is working properly again.

 

[Tomster88]

IE History working again.. FINALLY!

Hey Spew Hole..


THAAAAAAAANNK YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ive been looking for a fix for this for weeks, trying all of the 'experts' (useless) suggestions, nothing worked, period. IE8 just would not keep any history of visited websites, only showing what was in my C drive. As i said, I had tried everything, including system restore and uninstalling IE9. I was literally moments away from poking my Windows disk in the drive and wiping it all.. :banghead:
I tried the delete history method, closed IE, opened it back up, opened the history sidebar and smiled as i watched the entries start appearing as i clicked a few websites..
If i had really long arms, I'd shake your hand and pat your back profusely.. thanks for saving my sanity.

 

[SpewHole]

Just an edit. If you have A LOT of web sites saved in favorites, you might need to uncheck the "Preserve Favorites" when clearing browser history. I noticed that clearing the history was not resolving the issue until I changed that option.

It seems like the best practice is to monitor the favicons as your are browsing. As soon as you notice that the generic IE icon is showing instead of the custom site icons, clear the history manually. Uncheck everything except Cookies and History. That should do the trick. And lower the number of days that history is kept if you don't want to do this as often.