Google Chrome address bar is slow, can't delete URLs with clock icon from history

Question

I can't delete history items or visited webpages from Google Chrome that have the clock icon.

I recently visited some websites with very long URLs with about 600,000 characters each. Ever since, typing in my address bar has been very slow after the first few characters, even with auto-prediction turned off. Or even when the data URL does not appear in the suggested results.

I would like to delete these URLs from my history to (hopefully) solve my problem, but clearing the cache does not seem to work. It will delete everything except these data URLs.

I've also tried Shift+Delete in the address bar, which works for other URLs, but not these.

Apparently they won't work using Shift+Delete because these URLs have a clock icon and not a globe icon next to their name. I'm not sure what that signifies.

Solution

Manually deleting the History Provider Cache file seems to do the trick. Find it at the following:

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Mac OS X

~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/

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Windows Vista:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

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Deleting other history files does nothing.

Comments

[Jeff]

Yes, it won't delete the data urls. they don't even show up when i go to 'show full history'

[chrsblck]

Are these data URLs in your favorites/bookmarks? You can try removing them or even slimming down you favorites to see if that helps.

[Jeff]

Nope, they're not in my favorites. I don't think the problem has anything to do with my favorites (I don't have that many), but thanks...

[Shimmy Weitzhandler]

Please star: code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=178705

[Jeff]

Sorry to hear you're having issues, hopefully this solution provides some temporary relief. My original issue was fixed by the Chromium team: code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=86516

[Buttle Butkus]

@Jeff I don't see any solution in that thread.

[Jeff]

@ButtleButkus the solution is to update Chrome. there was a bug in the source code which was fixed.

[Phuah Yee Keat]

hmm, for me its clearing History from Tools. Deleting just the History Provider Cache on my Windows 8.1 doesn't speed it up at all.