Question

Huge SQLite files in Firefox profiles

Asked by: kzsigo

I'm the IT manager for a company of about 35 users.  We use Folder Redirection (group policy on Win2003 Servers) for users My Docs, App Data, and Desktop.

I recently noticed space getting eaten up at a rapid pace so I started investigating and found the culprit to be HUGE SQLite files in a few users Firefox profile folders.

I have already deleted them, but I wanted to post this here so people could help me figure out why it's happening.

The two files were SEARCH.SQLITE and URLCLASSIFIER2.SQLITE.

This only occurred with 4 of my users...no one else seemed to be affected.  On two of the profiles the search.sqlite file was huge, and the on the other two profiles, the urlclassifier2.sqlite file was huge.

When I say huge I mean hundreds of Gigs.  The four files I deleted were a total of 1.4 Terabytes!  The files were about 600gb, 300gb, 300gb, and 200gb.

Like I said, I just simply deleted them but wanted to post this here to begin a discussion about it because I didn't find ANY info on this subject on Google.

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2008-01-30 at 08:24:34ID23123204
Tags

Mozilla

,

Firefox

,

2.0.0.11

,

User profiles (Application Data folder) redirected to server

Topic

Mozilla Web Browser

Participating Experts
1
Points
250
Comments
15

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. JavaScript and Firefox
    I dunno if this is only on Firefox, but I doubt it because I remember seeing this before. I've noticed that pages with JavaScript on them, for some weird reason, the paragraph text changes slightly while the js is doing its work. So for example, if there's a javascript sl...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: mtz1of4Posted on 2008-01-30 at 09:21:05ID: 20778913

Actually, the search.sqlite file has Information about the Search Plug-ins that that user has installed.
And the urlclassifier2.sqlite holds the info about the known Phishing Sites.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Urlclassifier2.sqlite  <<< lots of good info there.

So, chances are they used quite a few custom Search Plug-ins, although my search.sqlite is only 8 kb. And my urlclassifier2.sqlite is only 4.62 MB.

1.4 Terabytes!?!?!?  Sounds like it can't update itself, but keeps adding to it.

 

by: mtz1of4Posted on 2008-01-30 at 16:27:27ID: 20782982

One of the things you could try is to turn off the phishing filters in Tools->Options->Security and turn off the "Tell me if the site I am visiting is a suspected forgery" or change the options below it.

 

by: kzsigoPosted on 2008-01-30 at 19:09:22ID: 20783576

Thank you mtz1of4.

The link you listed gives me the information I need on the urlclassifier.sqlite, so thank you.  However, I'm going to keep this discussion open for awhile to see if we can get people who have had a similar problem or know the exact cause or a solution (like is it a bug).

 

by: mtz1of4Posted on 2008-01-31 at 08:24:42ID: 20788079

Your welcome.  If you see this continuously happening, perhaps you could help the developers.

I noticed this https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=359145 regarding the Moving of the urlclassifier2.sqlite file. Unfortunately it doesn't mention the sizes you are discussing.
It sounds like they may have it fixed for Firefox 3, though.  And, you might want to make sure you are up to date on the latest version anyway.

 

by: kzsigoPosted on 2008-04-21 at 08:32:40ID: 21402944

This isn't exactly a solution, but I just ended up deleting the files & they haven't come back yet...also no one else has added to this topic saying that they had the same issue, so we'll just say the solution is to delete the files.  The links above from mtz1of4 give good info as to what the files are.

 

by: mtz1of4Posted on 2008-04-21 at 14:55:05ID: 21406440

kzsigo,

Have you considered  a split of points, perhaps?

 

by: kzsigoPosted on 2008-04-21 at 21:51:30ID: 21408163

Okay, the points can be split.  Please award 125 points to mtz1of4 for his efforts & close this question.

 

by: mtz1of4Posted on 2008-04-24 at 10:51:53ID: 21433388

Computer101,

I believe he would like a split.  See
 http:/Q_23123204.html#a21408163

 

by: kzsigoPosted on 2008-04-24 at 11:03:23ID: 21433474

yes i do, but the system won't let me award points to you & me.  It will let me split them between two other people, but not between myself & someone else.

 

by: kzsigoPosted on 2008-04-25 at 05:39:23ID: 21438856

I don't want to award myself points for a correct answer.  I want to refund half of my questions back to my account & award half of the points to mtz1of4.  How is that done?

 

by: kzsigoPosted on 2008-04-25 at 06:06:53ID: 31426428

This answer gave me info, but wasn't exactly a solution.  Thanks again mtz1of4!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...