My FireFox Browser History disappeared...how do I restore?

[YborChach]

I had an incident whereby I accidentally deleted my Browser History. To make matters worse...I used my Geek Squad program techs asking them to restore my Browser History for me and one of their Tech's rebooted my computer - shutting down my browser. This is something I asked the Tech not to do as I had read online that in order to restore your browser history one of things you didn't want to do was to shutdown your browser and/or reboot your computer.

So now, I have no apparent Browser History to pull back in....sigh I did find a "places.sqlite" file inside my old back-up Folder that was placed on my Desktop during one of Firefox's recent backed-up processes. But I tried to use it by replacing the current "places.sqlite" file inside the Profile section with the backed-up "places.sqlite" file I found on my Desktop - but, it did not pull in the 6 months+ of Browser History I lost.

So - I then found a way to download my Google Search files but they are in a JSON File format and I have no clue what to do with them inside my Firefox Profile Folder. I don't even know if Google Search JSON files can be used in place of the FireFox "places.sqlite"file.

Can anyone help, advise, direct et al....? I really need those Browser Search files back. Doesn't everyone?...lol

I'm being told by the Geek Squad that I need to take my computer into their store to have a tech there implement a RESTORE to get my Browser History back. I'd rather not do that if I don't have to.....sigh

Thanks so much!

[dickvl]

You can check if there is an older copy of places.sqlite available as part of a system restore point.
Right-click places.sqlite: Properties -> Previous Versions

You can look at this utility:
System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/

Make sure to remove any present places.sqlite-shm and places.sqlite-wal SQLite temp files when you replace places.sqlite with an older copy.

[YborChach]

Thanks - I checked and there are none....sigh I just have the Back-up Folder on my Desktop. Inside that folder there is an older version.

I'll have to study the System Restore Explorer option - I'm not familiar with it.

When I replaced the current "places.sqlite" file with the same named back-up file - I did not remove the "shm, wal, etc... temp files." I'll try that first.

Do you know anything about the Google Search files and if they are usable?

Thanks so much!