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Up until a few days ago, my installation of Chrome would offer autocomplete suggestions in website search boxes and other data entry fields based on what I had previously typed in those boxes. Either by starting to type, or just clicking on a data entry field, a list of past entries would drop down from the data entry box.

When Chrome started acting a bit wonky, I cleared the browsing history and everything else it had a checkbox to clear. After that, even after manually typing things into those boxes on various sites, Chrome would no longer offer an autocomplete drop down list from those boxes. It would still offer suggestions on Google but not on other sites that it used to.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome. HUGE mistake. The latest interactive Chrome installer from Google will no longer install Chrome on Vista. I had to get the last full standalone Chrome installer from a third-party site to install Chrome again.

I have Chrome back now, but it still does not autocomplete from past entries in data entry boxes. I have tried researching how to fix this. I have autofill turned on, but apparently that's not the right option as it hasn't restored the autocomplete functionality I was used to on any site besides Google's search page.

How can I restore autocomplete or saved form data entry suggestions?

Imma be that guy: you really should not be putting a Vista machine on the Internet. It's been out of support for nearly a year now and so there are many security vulnerabilities that the bad guys know about and can exploit. Since your browser no longer gets security updates either, you've compounded the problem. Upgrade.

Your problem is probably related to Google no longer caring if Chrome is compatible with Vista. Because of that they can change to different, newer APIs.

camel wrote:

When Chrome started acting a bit wonky, I cleared the browsing history and everything else it had a checkbox to clear.

When you say "everything else it had a checkbox to clear", I assume that included the checkbox that says "autofill form data"?

camel wrote:

After that, even after manually typing things into those boxes on various sites, Chrome would no longer offer an autocomplete drop down list from those boxes.

That's because you cleared all the saved form data Chrome had remembered from previous visits to those sites.

camel wrote:

It would still offer suggestions on Google but not on other sites that it used to.

That's because (unlike most other sites) the Google auto-complete data comes from Google's servers, not from data saved locally on your PC.

camel wrote:

How can I restore autocomplete or saved form data entry suggestions?

Unless you have a backup of your system from before you cleared the autofill form data, you can't. You deleted the suggestions when you cleared your browser data. It should remember them again after you've gone to those sites and filled the info in manually.

just brew it! wrote:

camel wrote:

When Chrome started acting a bit wonky, I cleared the browsing history and everything else it had a checkbox to clear.

When you say "everything else it had a checkbox to clear", I assume that included the checkbox that says "autofill form data"?

Yes.

just brew it! wrote:

camel wrote:

How can I restore autocomplete or saved form data entry suggestions?

Unless you have a backup of your system from before you cleared the autofill form data, you can't. You deleted the suggestions when you cleared your browser data. It should remember them again after you've gone to those sites and filled the info in manually.

That's what I'm saying; I have gone to those sites again and I have manually entered data in various text boxes again, but Chrome either does not remember them now, or for some other reason no longer offers text I manually typed into those fields just a minute before.

After I uninstalled Chrome, I lost all my bookmarks, too, but I was able to restore them by restoring a shadow copy of the bookmarks file. If I knew which file contained saved autofill data I would try restoring that, but I don't know which file(s) it is.

Oh, sorry. I misunderstood your original post then. Maybe try completely uninstalling Chrome, deleting any folders it has created (some may be hidden...), then reinstalling it? You can do a trial run of this by temporarily creating a new user account on your system. If a fresh install of Chrome to a new account works normally (i.e. seems to be remembering data you enter into forms), then the problem is due to wreckage left somewhere in your user folder by the previous Chrome install.

TBH, like bthylafh says, you really need to get off of Vista though. Running an unsupported old version of Chrome on an unsupported old OS is not a good idea. Especially in light of the recent Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities. Spectre can be exploited via malicious "drive by" JavaScript, and if you're on anything less than Chrome 64 you're vulnerable.

I am well aware of Vista's end of support and lack of security. It's an old PC with a lot of old software that I like, and I mainly just use it to play games anymore. If the PC gets hacked it won't be the end of the world (I'm pretty sure it's compromised 6 ways to Sunday already). I have another, newer PC with Windows 10, but the two PCs are not networked. I just unplug the ethernet cable from one and plug it into the other when I want to change PCs.

I just want to be able to click on saved form data instead of manually typing everything, like I used to. I will try creating a temp user account and installing Chrome on it.

Not to derail, but what games are you playing on Vista that you can't install on Win10?

camel wrote:

I just want to be able to click on saved form data instead of manually typing everything, like I used to. I will try creating a temp user account and installing Chrome on it.

...and if that doesn't help, my next guess would be that the version of Chrome you're installing is incompatible with Vista in some subtle way. Or that your Vista install is corrupted.

DPete27 wrote:

Not to derail, but what games are you playing on Vista that you can't install on Win10?

It's not a question of "can't." Most of the software could be installed on Windows 10, I guess, if I was really worried about it. Most of the games are at game sites. Most of the time I use the same game name to start games. I used to be able to just click start that text field; now I have to type in a name every time. It's not a H U G E problem, just an annoyance I sought to fix. This PC also has the Windows Mail client that I've always used to collect and back-up my emails. I'm too lazy to migrate them to the new PC.

I'm too lazy

Okay, then.