Firefox 6 Cookies

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1

Is anyone else getting problems with cookies being lost on Firefox 6? The recent upgrade from 5 to 6 went smoothly but after starting version 6, almost all cookies have been lost. There doesn’t seem any obvious pattern to the loss. I played with the cookie preference settings, looked in the about:permissions options, and nothing has helped. Reluctantly, I downgraded to version 5, restored the cookies.sqlite file from my backup taken before the upgrade, and all is fine again.

General noise on the internet suggests it’s affecting a number of people, and not just on Linux distros.

Probably not an openSUSE issue, but does anyone have any comments?

Many thanks.

Doug

Although probably not relevant, I’m running openSUSE 11.4 64-bit with Gnome 3. I like it very much.

2

I haven’t run into this with FF6 on oS 11.3. Did you try restoring your cookies from the backup before the downgrade?

3

Thanks for the thought. Yes, I firstly restored the cookies onto the version 6 firefox. On starting, most of them went again. Then I downgraded to version 5, restored cookies again, and all was well.

4

I’m just curious why you care about preserving cookies across updates. They are a per session thing and not the same as your passwords or anything like that. If you start from an empty cookie file, the worst that will happen is that you may be asked to login again on sites that have previously “remembered you”. I am thinking there may be no guarantee that 6 will use the same storage format as 5 in the cookies.sqlite file.

5

I have had some rather unusual behaviour - none of which I can explain. But there is certainly something different from FF4 and 5.
I seemingly completely lost some cookies and yet others were OK

6

Thanks for the comments.

I agree that session cookies have a useful role to play, and I’m not aware of any particular issues with them after the upgrade. However, I also believe that enduring cookies are very important. Some trivial examples are that they retain information about places of interest for weather sites (such as the Met Office in the UK), your own location for news sites (such as the BBC in the UK), and membership ID for various sites (different from logon ID and password).

Quite honestly, it is a real nuisance that cookies are not retained in Firefox 6. If it is an issue related to the format of the sqlite file, then a) I’m surprised it wasn’t picked up before release and b) shouldn’t the upgrade either perform the conversion or at least warn about it? Just to delete them seems completely wrong.

Doug

7

On 08/29/2011 07:26 PM, dougallen wrote:
>
> I’m surprised it wasn’t picked up before release and b)
> shouldn’t the upgrade either perform the conversion or at least warn
> about it?

assuming the problem found is in the moz developed code: shouldn’t
someone in this thread be hopping over to the Mozilla forum and seeing
whats what? or finding the bug reporting apparatus there and . . .

or, on the outside chance that the openSUSE devs mucked up the cookie
monster, shouldn’t someone log a bug with bugzilla:
http://tinyurl.com/nzhq7j

–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!

8

Thus far, no problems here. The update to ff6 came through this morning. After updating, I restarted firefox to get the new version. Then I restarted it a second time. Come to think of it, I shut it down when I went to work, and then restarted a third time.

I seem to still be logged into a number of sites (forums, blogs, etc). I had to login again to this forum, since it does not support persistent cookies. And I expect that I will have to login again to one other forum because that one forces me out when it notices a firefox version change or an IP change. I am still logged in everywhere else that I expect to be. The opensuse firefox extension is reported as incompatible, but thus far that’s the only “problem” that I have seen.

9

Remember that the bulk of the information is server side. The server can make use of a whole bunch of data to decide how to behave and cookies are only one source of information. Other data include browser name, browser version, IP address, and with the advent of mobile devices, your geolocation. Certainly your browser version would have changed during the upgrade, maybe the IP if you rebooted and you are connected to broadband directly. So you’d have to be sure that the server behaviour is invariant with these changes before blaming cookie loss for changed behaviour.

10

Thank you all very much. There are some interesting comments that certainly give plenty of food for thought. In particular, I hadn’t thought about the implications for the server. Although previous version changes haven’t affected cookie operation, the change to version 6 is quite extensive and so could have more consequences. Maybe I should try exporting the cookies from version 5 with an add-on that translates them to text files, and then importing them into version 6 with the corresponding import add-on. Also, not a particularly great solution, but I should try creating the cookies again site by site on a clean installation of version 6 and see whether they are retained across repeated restarts. I’ll try these combinations, hopefully later today.

In response to one of the other comments, my purpose in raising the issue on this forum was to see whether I had done something stupid, missed something obvious to others, hit some combination of configurations on my system, or whether it was likely to be a firefox issue. I wanted to do this before logging a “bug” for the hard pressed mozilla developers to look at. They have enough to do without people like me giving them unnecessary extra work, I imagine!

Many thanks again for all the input so far.

11

On 08/30/2011 10:06 AM, dougallen wrote:
>
> I’ll try these combinations, hopefully later today.

i’m watching this thread because (for now) i have marked as taboo
today’s offered update (via YaST Online Updater, aka YOU) to FF6…

when i see what you learn, and if there is not a huge cry from around
the world about FF 6 being born broken, i’ll let YOU proceed…and, see
if my experience meshes with yours…

–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!

12

Well, I’ve executed a few variations and here is what I found.

  1. Ran Firefox version 5 with accumulated cookies. All was well. Preferences are retained for some example sites that use cookies (Met Office - to hold several locations of interest, BBC - to hold location for local news, Bank - to allow selection of user going to login next).

  2. Updated Firefox to version 6. All existing cookies were lost. New cookies could be set for sites visited. This would be a long winded process to recreate all missing cookies. I checked the permissions of the cookies.sqlite file both before and after. There were no differences.

  3. I reverted to Firefox version 5, installed the add-on Cookie Exporter 1.5, and exported all cookies to a text file in the Desktop folder. I then upgraded Firefox to version 6 and checked that cookies were not working. I deleted all existing cookies using the Preferences, Privacy route (rather than just deleting cookies.sqlite). After installing the Cookie Importer 1.1 add-on, I imported the cookies text file from the Desktop folder. All sites now worked. Everything was normal. Even after several restarts, everything was still normal.

  4. Just to get extra reassurance, I overwrote the cookies.sqlite file with the original from the version 5 backup and started Firefox 6 again. All cookies were lost. I then deleted all cookies (some new ones had been created from sites I tested with) and imported from the cookies.text file. Everything went back to normal.

So, I’m not sure what is causing this behaviour, but it seems that the automatic upgrade causes existing cookies to be lost but new ones to be retained properly. The use of Cookie exporter and importer seems a shortcut way of getting existing cookies to be accepted by Firefox as new ones, without having to visit each site and go through the appropriate processes.

It is not a simple file permission issue, it appears, but I know that some work has gone on in Firefox in its permissions area. Maybe the result, possibly on security grounds, is that existing cookies are seen as a risk and deleted, whilst new ones (and I include imported ones in this category) have gone through the revised Firefox 6 process and are accepted. Just conjecture, I know, but food for thought maybe.

So, for those people who, like me, are aghast at the thought of losing lots of useful accumulated cookies, the export and import trick seems to offer a way forward for the Firefox 6 upgrade.

I look forward to further reactions and comments from people with probably more knowledge of this area than me.

Doug

13

On 08/30/2011 05:46 PM, dougallen wrote:
>
> Well, I’ve executed a few variations and here is what I found.
>
> 1. Ran Firefox version 5 with accumulated cookies. All was well.
> Preferences are retained for some example sites that use cookies (Met
> Office - to hold several locations of interest, BBC - to hold location
> for local news, Bank - to allow selection of user going to login next).
>
> 2. Updated Firefox to version 6. All existing cookies were lost. New
> cookies could be set for sites visited. This would be a long winded
> process to recreate all missing cookies. I checked the permissions of
> the cookies.sqlite file both before and after. There were no
> differences.
>
> 3. I reverted to Firefox version 5, installed the add-on Cookie
> Exporter 1.5, and exported all cookies to a text file in the Desktop
> folder. I then upgraded Firefox to version 6 and checked that cookies
> were not working. I deleted all existing cookies using the Preferences,
> Privacy route (rather than just deleting cookies.sqlite). After
> installing the Cookie Importer 1.1 add-on, I imported the cookies text
> file from the Desktop folder. All sites now worked. Everything was
> normal. Even after several restarts, everything was still normal.
>
> 4. Just to get extra reassurance, I overwrote the cookies.sqlite file
> with the original from the version 5 backup and started Firefox 6 again.
> All cookies were lost. I then deleted all cookies (some new ones had
> been created from sites I tested with) and imported from the
> cookies.text file. Everything went back to normal.
>
> So, I’m not sure what is causing this behaviour, but it seems that the
> automatic upgrade causes existing cookies to be lost but new ones to be
> retained properly. The use of Cookie exporter and importer seems a
> shortcut way of getting existing cookies to be accepted by Firefox as
> new ones, without having to visit each site and go through the
> appropriate processes.
>
> It is not a simple file permission issue, it appears, but I know that
> some work has gone on in Firefox in its permissions area. Maybe the
> result, possibly on security grounds, is that existing cookies are seen
> as a risk and deleted, whilst new ones (and I include imported ones in
> this category) have gone through the revised Firefox 6 process and are
> accepted. Just conjecture, I know, but food for thought maybe.
>
> So, for those people who, like me, are aghast at the thought of losing
> lots of useful accumulated cookies, the export and import trick seems to
> offer a way forward for the Firefox 6 upgrade.
>
> I look forward to further reactions and comments from people with
> probably more knowledge of this area than me.
>
> Doug
>
>
what i did:

running FF5
-backed up FF5 ~/.mozilla/firefox/[random].default/cookies.sqlite
-installed Cookie Exporter/Importer
-restarted FF5
-ran Cookie Exporter
-shut down FF5

-installed FF6 using YaST Online Updater
-backed up FF6 ~/.mozilla/firefox/[random].default/cookies.sqlite
-used kdiff3 to compare FF5 vs FF& cookies.sqlite, and find they are
different in several binary strings…but exactly the same size…

launched FF6

-found two new files
~/.mozilla/firefox/[random].default/cookies.sqlite-shm
~/.mozilla/firefox/[random].default/cookies.sqlite-wal
-read Release Notes and found nothing about cookie handling changes
-went to Google Calendar and find i am still signed in
-went to Facebook and find i am still logged in
-went to the New York Times and it still knows me
-went to several other sites requiring cookies from past visits (and
past log ins) and they all recognized me and worked as expected

so far, i find no problems introduced by the changed sqlite format or
added files…

ymmv

–
DD Software
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!

14

Interesting results. I gather you exported the cookies as a safety measure but didn’t use them with version 6 yet had no problems. I wonder why the results differ.

The extra files you mentioned are I think just to do with the SQL database. I think cookies.sqlite-shm allows shared memory access, multiple access to the database, and cookies.sqlite-wal is the write ahead log. I think both files are temporary for the session only, so can be deleted but will be recreated by FF when next required. I’m not sure they are relevant to the current issue we are exploring.

I too found the cookie files to be identical sizes, but I didn’t explore them more deeply as you have done.

So, I still can’t explain why I had problems with my cookies and you don’t. Maybe there was something (corruption maybe) in my cookie file that FF6 objected to. Whatever the cause, export and re-import gets round it for me. Perhaps it’s not a FF bug but rather what is nicely called an undocumented feature!

It will be interesting to see what further comments there are from anyone, and whether anyone else comes across issues with cookies. If it’s only me, then I won’t report it as a FF bug. Either way, it’s looking quite definite that it’s nothing specific to openSUSE.

15

On 08/31/2011 10:06 AM, dougallen wrote:
> I gather you exported the cookies as a safety
> measure but didn’t use them with version 6 yet had no problems.

exactly…

> So, I still can’t explain why I had problems with my cookies and you
> don’t.

me either…except maybe the fact that i try to strictly stick to the
latest released openSUSE (oss, non-oss, packman and update) as much as
possible…and, not experiment with bleeding edge (like Gnome3, or
anything from tumbleweed, unstable, factory or playground repos) and by
waiting as i did for FF6 to show up in the openSUSE 11.4 update repo,
something had been fixed in mine which was not fixed in yours…maybe…

i know that i rarely have the very wide variety of little, strange,
weird, troublesome problems which turn up in these fora daily (sometimes
hourly)…

ymmv

–
DD Software
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!

16

Thanks very much for all your input.

It remains a mystery, but if you find out the secret of your charmed life, I’m sure you could sell it to an eagerly waiting world!!

Just for completeness, the only non-standard aspect I can think of is Gnome 3. That isn’t really bleeding edge now, and it isn’t obvious why it would have any affect on FF cookies, but I suppose you never know how far tentacles can reach!

Also, I upgraded my FF from the openSUSE BuildService - Mozilla repository, which again I don’t think is living on the wild side of life.

Anyway, I do appreciate all the input and especially the trouble you have taken, DenverD.

Doug

17

My Gnome 3 desktop did not experience the cookie problem, only on a (separate) KDE and Gnome 2 box. Concurrent with strange cookie behavior, FF experienced “disappearing” tabs: the leftmost tab in secondary FF windows would disappear from the tab bar, yet remained under the “Tab Group” display.

I found that post FF6 upgrade (from FF5), the “MozillaFirefox-branding-openSUSE” remained installed (@ 5.0.3.1). I use the Firefox addon “AddOn Compatibility Reporter”, which allowed this downlevel package to enable “openSUSE Firefox Extensions” (@1.0.1).

Updating the branding to “MozillaFirefox-branding-upstream” removed the “openSUSE Firefox Extensions”, tabs no longer disappear, and all cookies are behaving as before the upgrade.

18

I too lost all my cookies when I upgraded to FF6. And, yes, I was horrified - very inconvenient and time consuming to set everything back up. As if that wasn’t bad enough, today I installed FF 6.0.2, and once again, I lost all my cookies. I may need to begin using Chrome or Safari.

I’m running OSX 10.6.8.

19

On 09/11/2011 01:46 AM, nrosboro wrote:
>
> I’m running OSX 10.6.8.

since this is an openSUSE forum, i assume you are here to gather data
you will use to log a bug with the mozilla folks ??

btw, i had no “cookie loss” moving from 5 to 6 or from 6 to 6.0.2, so
this ‘bug’ doesn’t hit all folks, which makes it all the more important
that those with the hardware/software mix where the bug shows, log
it with the bug trackers.

–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems