unable to delete specific items from history

Question

unable to delete specific items from history

I am running the current versions of Safari and OS X Yosemite on my late 2012 Mac Mini. I like to keep 6 months of history so deleting all of my history is not something I wan to do. The history items that I cannot delete are state government sites that I visited over 6 months ago and all url's end with .aspx. An ASPX file is an Active Server Page Extended File, developed by Microsoft. I have tried restarting Safari and my computer and deleting these history items again. I have gone into Preferences/Privacy and attempted to remove any data related to these sites. I delete the history and it instantly reappears. Any help with removing these files from my Safari history would be appreciated.

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10), iPod Classic, iPad Mini, iPhone 5S

Posted on Sep 23, 2015 5:57 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 7, 2015 3:12 PM in response to William Martin, RM

Well I found an answer to my question and hope that this will help someone else out. Since my initial email I have done a clean install of Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, i.e., I erased my hard disk, installed Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, then downloaded and installed my previously installed programs. I don't think that this will make a difference. Anyway one of my items deleted without issue maybe because of El Capitan. To delete the other item, and I think this will work for others, I removed the Ethernet cable at the back of my Mac Mini, then closed and restarted Safari. I deleted the item without issue. For those of you with a wireless connection for your Internet you would obviously need to turn of your Wi-Fi.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Sep 23, 2015 6:42 AM in response to William Martin, RM

Safari/Preferences/Advanced - enable the Develop menu, then go there and Empty Caches. Quit/reopen Safari and test. Then try Safari/History/Show History and delete all history items. Quit/reopen Safari and test. You can also try try Safari/Clear History and Web Site Data. The down side is it clears all cookies.Doing this may cause some sites to no longer recognize your computer as one that has visited the web site. Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library./Caches/com.apple.Safari/Caches.db and move it to the trash.

Go to Safari Preferences/Extensions and turn all extensions off. Test. If okay, turn the extensions on one by one until you figure out what extension is causing the problem.

Safari Corruption See post by Linc Davis

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Answer 3

Sep 30, 2015 6:04 AM in response to Eric Root

Thank you for the suggestion Eric. I followed them but these stubborn files still remain. I plan on doing a clean install of El Capitan today and since I will probably not import my history or anything else from my current install this should resolve this issue.

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Answer 4

Sep 30, 2015 7:14 AM in response to Eric Root

I should have state this earlier but I am thinking the issue might be with Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac given that .aspx are Microsoft creations. When I do a clean install I believe that Safari will pull my bookmarks and history from iCloud. So one of the first things I will do is try to select those files before re-installing MS Office.

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

685,257 points

Sep 30, 2015 6:24 AM in response to William Martin, RM

You are welcome.

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