URL autocomplete no longer working in Chrome

Question

The browser URL autocomplete has started behaving differently starting yesterday.

I used to access my top urls by typing the first one or two letters of a URL then pressing enter. Now, I have to visually fish for the right one and push the down arrow to select the url. Big difference.

Anybody know if I can get the old functionality back somehow? Have I messed a setting?

Example of how my browser used to work:

Gmail.com:
CMD + L
Type G
Enter

Stackoverflow.com
CMD + L 
Type S
Enter

Normally, the browser bar would already be highlighted with gmail.com after typing the first g. It would narrow the matches depending on what characters were typed next, or simply go to it if I pressed enter.

UPDATE: I just realized my history tab looks suspicious. No entries

But clearly Chrome is pulling some data from my history, as I have very personalized recommendations when typing in a letter.

Solution 1

Saved my bookmarks, removed my ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Default directory (careful, it looks like absolutely everything is stored here) restarted chrome, and within one visit to Gmail.com, my autocomplete was filling in my URLs like so:

Beautiful.

Solution 2

It seems chrome crash will cause this.

Here is what I did to solve that:

• close chrome
• remove -rf ~/.config/google-chrome/
• restart chrome
• re-login to chrome to restore things like theme,
• now, the auto fill should be working.

Solution 3

This happened to me and when I checked on Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar in Settings > Advanced Settings the box was unchecked and disabled. There was a puzzle piece next to it explaining Privacy Badger had shut the service off.

Comments

[Admin]

What were the first entries replaced with? Could you provide a screenshot of an example maybe? Thanks

[Admin]

@OliverSalzburg done

[Admin]

what version / channel are you on? Did you change anything in chrome://flags? Or chrome://settings? It's working fine here, on Stable & dev channels

[Admin]

Have you cleared your browsing data recently? Because that will do it.

[Admin]

@PeterMaxwell, indeed I did at some point last week. Maybe I only noticed this a few days ago, in which case I'd be supremely happy. I've yet to see anything pre-filled in the address bar.

[Admin]

Yeah, you should be good now. If the problem still exists, let us know.

[Admin]

@PeterMaxwell, just how long should this take? I don't remember it being this... picky. I have zero autocompletes.. I just realized another symptom: speaking of history, my history log shows nothing. It clearly has some record though, because gr gives me grovemade.com which sounds local to my machine.

[Admin]

If you've been using Chrome, there should be history, unless you're using Incognito Mode.

[Admin]

@PeterMaxwell no unfortunately; i.imgur.com/Tsal5.png thanks for your time! Any ideas are mucho appreciated.

[Admin]

Alright I'll keep looking and let you know if I find anything.

[Admin]

delete your profile & recreate it. Make sure to have sync enabled first so that your passwords, bookmarks among others are saved. Report back if the problem persists after destroying the your user data folder - %localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data

[Admin]

@Sathya, chrome sync is only syncing 2 bookmarks and nothing else. Oh well! That's another symptom.

[Admin]

@Sathya, removing my ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/ directory did the trick! Auto complete is back in one visit to gmail.

[Vaishak]

This saved my time and effort, was suppose to try removing ~/.config/google-chrome :D

[subjectivist]

What I did was rename the Default directory to Default.save, just in case. Opened Chrome. Yes, URL autocomplete was working, but after sign in, info was missing in some of my extensions. So deleted new Default and renamed the old back to what it was. URL autocomplete still working and I have all my stuff.