Hi, I’m, a newbie with this, but just solved a similar problem the other day, may be of some help - look at the end of my posting:
If you are using tabs, it seems that each tab has it’s own independent nav history - basically the tab gets you back within states of the tab you are on, but not back any state within another tab (maybe someone else will say I’m wrong, if so listen to them!)
I assume you have seen this? http://ionicframework.com/docs/api/directive/ionNavView/