How to Fix Protection History missing in Windows 11 or 10

Protection history is a part of the Windows Security app that displays actions and recommendations about threats in Windows 11 and 10. The page includes Quarantined items, Cleaned items, Removed items, Allowed items, Removed items, Blocked actions, and severity of a threat. Blocked actions option has 3 sub-menus – Block folder access, Blocked items, and Ruled-base block, similarly Severity has 4 items – Severe High, Moderate, and Low. But sometimes people complain Protection History missing issue.

The Windows Defender Protection history is empty or blank and nothing can be seen on the page when the problem occurs. Immediately after running a “Quick Scan”, “Full Scan”, “Custom Scan” or “Microsoft Defender offline scan”, usually a user navigates to Protection history. But he gets disappointed and finds himself out of nowhere when finds unoccupied because he is unable to know the status of threats or clear them on his Windows 11 computer. Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem. See – Fix: Insider Program Settings Blank, Empty, or Missing in Windows 10.

Windows Defender Protection History missing

Here is how to fix Protection History missing in Windows 11 or 10 –

Way-1: Disable Windows Defender and reboot the PC

To normally access the concerned settings you can go through – How to See Protection History in Windows 10, but in this case, the content inside this page is missing. Turning off the Windows Defender and deleting the mpcache files work like wonder to fix the issue –

1. Hit – Windows and R.
2. Type – cmd.exe.
3. Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.
4. Select Yes when the User account control setting popup opens.
5. Type the following commands successively and press Enter.

del "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans\History\Service\DetectionHistory\*"
del "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans\mpenginedb.db"

6. Click on Search.
7. Type Windows Security.
8. Press Enter.
9. Select – Virus & threat protection.
10. Now click on the Manage settings link.
11. From the next page, turn off Real-time protection and Cloud-delivered protection.

12. Now open File Explorer (Win+E).
13. Go to (C:) drive.
14. Double-click on ProgramData.
15. Open the Microsoft folder.
16. Enter Windows Defender and the launch Scans folder.
17. The path will be as follow –

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans

18. Find all the files with prefix mpcache and delete them.
19. On my computer, the Scans folder has the following files which I am deleting –

mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.01
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.6C
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.7C
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.7E
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.67
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.79
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.80
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.83
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.87
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.A0
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.DB
mpcache-8B71EC38EE6CA744C8B3D9719F943BEFDB9392A9.bin.E6

20. Sometimes, you might not be able to delete mpcache files and get a message  – “The action cannot be completed because the file is open in Microsoft Defender Antivirus Service”.
21. In this case, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
22. On the Task Manager, Find the processes related to Widows Security and Windows Defender.
23. Right-click on each of them and select End task.
24. Now try to delete mpcache files.
25. Reboot the PC if you can get back the missing Protection history in Windows Defender.

Way-2: Delete mpcache files using cmd command to fix missing Windows security threat history

II you can not remove mpcache files even after turning off real-time protection and using End Task in Task Manager then a cmd command may help.

1. Launch Command prompt as administrator (Steps are mentioned in the first method)
2. Enter the following command –

del "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans\mpcache*" /s > NUL 2>&1

3. Finally, restart your PC to see missing Protection History in Windows 11 or 10.

Methods:
Way-1: Disable Windows Defender and reboot the PC
Way-2: Delete mpcache files using cmd command

That’s all!!