On this Debian Jessie installation, Bash history seems to be behaving inconsistently in Gnome Terminal:$ echo $USERme$ echo $HISTFILE/home/me/.bash_history$ grep browser ~/.bash_history browser-sync start$ history | grep browser 2071  grep browser ~/.bash_history  2073  history | grep browserThe browser-sync line from the ~/.bash_history file is quite old: much older than the current Terminal session. Why isn't it showing up in the results from history | grep browser?
Inconsistent Bash history
bash;command history
The $HISTSIZE variable has too low a value. The apparent inconsistency can be resolved by sufficiently increasing the value of $HISTSIZE.The Bash manual doesn't explain it very well:HISTSIZEThe maximum number of commands to remember on the history list. If the value is 0, commands are not saved in the history list. Numeric  values less than zero result in every command being saved on the  history list (there is no limit). The shell sets the default value to  500 after reading any startup files.Here is a better explanation:The default value for HISTSIZE (500) would load only a fraction of the  saved history [if the saved history is greater than 500 lines].