You can use the SQLite Manager extension in Firefox to inspect SQLite databases.

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/

1. Open Profile Directory -> places.sqlite -> Go
2. Hit the "Execute SQL" tab
3. Use a Select like this:

SELECT datetime(visit_date/1000000,'unixepoch','localtime') AS visit_date, url, title, visit_count, frecency
FROM moz_places, moz_historyvisits
WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id

For specific domains:

WHERE moz_places.id = moz_historyvisits.place_id AND url LIKE '%google.com%'

• http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html#like

... what i see can't be right, 1 page has a frecency value of -2147483648, with a visit count of 2088. and looking at the values, it doesn't seem to count bookmarks at all. a bookmarked page i've visited twice 2 years ago has a value of 20, an unbookmarked page i've visited twice 1 year ago has 168. as i understand it, anything not visited in the last 90 days should be treated equally.

i did notice something odd in about:config browser.cache.frecency_experiment in about:config keeps being set to 1, 2, or 4 if i reset it to default, even if there are no add-ons enabled.

-2147483648 would likely be a "-1" value and indicate that no frecency has been set yet (i.e. the link has never been used) or otherwise some overflow occurred.

Note that bonus points expire after some time.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/Mozilla/Tech/Places/Frecency_algorithm

the negative number fixed itself after visiting that page, giving it a positive value well over 200000.

for the other pages what happened just doesn't make sense. nothing significant happened to any of the pages that got re-sorted by the frecency algorithm, and their last visited dates where all well past any cut-off listed on https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/Places/Frecency_algorithm so whether they where sorted correctly now or in the past, nothing should've changed.

anyway, this is too much headache-inducing stuff for me.

the entire algorithm is wasted on me, i'd much rather have a "dumb" system that orders bookmarks first, and then history in order of last visit. at this point i don't care about "fixing" this anymore. if you know of a way for a "simple user" to replace the algorithm with something "dumb" i'd consider that a sufficient solution, if not i'll just "game the system" with fake page visits and re-adding bookmarks.

thanks for trying to educate me on this.

a "dumb" system that orders bookmarks first,

How about showing just bookmarked results. Enter an asterisk * and a space first when you start typing into the address bar.

• Address bar autocomplete suggestions in Firefox_changing-results-on-the-fly

And if you create a new profile, then copy over places.sqlite you will have the prefs reset and you can safely test to see if that corrects the problem. And if you wish to test an an edited places.sqlite you have spare copy to play with.

• Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles

It may also be worth installing and running places maintenance

• https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/places-maintenance/