Cookie exceptions disappear in Firefox 17 vs 16

[VanillaMozilla]

I am sure they will spot it after examining the code....

There are almost a million bug reports. Do you know how many are sitting there with no response whatsoever? Nobody will examine the code unless someone reproduces the problem, and they're not likely to try unless you make it easy. But who knows? You could get lucky.

And don't worry. If it's really an important bug, someone else will report it.

[dickvl]

Try to attach a corrupted permissions.sqlite file to the bug report (Bug 814554) that isn't processed properly, so they have something to test it against.

[Spurred_On]

I'm confused by the Fix. I already have Firefox 17.0 installed. I let Mozilla download and install Firefox 17 on my system, which means it overwrote my existing Firefox 16 files.

The summary for the fix states:

1. export permissions.sqlite to hostperm.1 while in Firefox 15/16 using an extension

Now that I've been frustratedly using Firefox 17 for days and renewing or changing (not really sure which) the permissions in the pop-up boxes after each restart of Firefox, I'm assuming my present permissions.sqlite file is corrupted.

How will reinstalling Firefox 16 restore my original Firefox 16 permissions.sqlite file as it was before installing Firefox 17? Hasn't it already been written over — many times?

Tony

[JayhawksRock]

How will reinstalling Firefox 16 restore my original Firefox 16 permissions.sqlite file as it was before installing Firefox 17? Hasn't it already been written over — many times?

Tony

The Files that are in your profile are NOT overwritten when installing or updating a new version. So whatever is in your profile, corrupt or not, are carried forward. Unless, of course, you did a new install and not an update and did not tell the installer to use existing data.

[Spurred_On]

Thanks for answering JayhawsRock.

My fear is that I've been using Firefox 17, and each time I reopen it, with various tabs in, at present, four pages loading, I have to accept, accept for session, or deny the same cookies over and over again. This is the overwriting that I'm worried about, not the overwriting by the updating of Firefox.

[JayhawksRock]

OK.. understand now. Do you use any Cookie related Extensions? And/or privacy related toolbars or extensions. If yes, disable the suspect items in Addons > Plugins and Addons > Extensions restart Firefox and see if they stay safed.

And have you tried Mozilla SafeMode yet? kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode

[Spurred_On]

Thanks JayhawksRock

I use the Cookie Mosnter extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... r/?src=api

It is a great program, but it has not been updated since September 9, 2011.

Earlier tonight I downloaded and installed the ExExceptions extension. Using it with Firefox 17, I was able to see that my cookie permissions were still okay. There seemed to be some permissions that I'm pretty sure I had set to Accept that were missing. I guess I can get them added back in when I revisit the sites, although they were secure sites and may be stored somewhere else. The saved Premission File from ExExceptions was 277 KB and was a very, very long list from before A (numbers) down through Z. I only spotted one site that looked potentially hinky, but on researching it I found that it was a registered domain, so I think my Permission list is okay.

I need to try several things first:

1. Disable the Cookie Monster extension and see if that allows the Permissions to stay. Expectations are not high on that bit.

2. Download and install Firefox 16.0.1 (which worked fine), save out the Permission file with ExExceptions, then follow the instructions posted above. At this point, I'm not sure it will make any difference in reverting to FF 16.0.1, as the permissions.sqlite file was last modified by Firefox when I reopened it before logging in to this forum.

As it's after 1:30 in the morning here, I'm going to deal with all of that tomorrow.

[Stephen_C]

2. Download and install Firefox 16.0.1 (which worked fine), save out the Permission file with ExExceptions, then follow the instructions posted above. At this point, I'm not sure it will make any difference in reverting to FF 16.0.1, as the permissions.sqlite file was last modified by Firefox when I reopened it before logging in to this forum.

For what it's worth, that is what I did. In other words, I'd run FF 17 before trying the fix - and the fix worked perfectly. I found a line in the exported file that contained a reference to "scheme:file". I commented that out as recommended in -ck-'s post, followed the remainder of the suggestions and am now running FF 17 without any cookie problem.

In summary, in my case it made no difference that I'd run FF 17 before reverting to FF 16 and sorting out everything.

Stephen

[Spurred_On]

Thanks Stephen_C

To my thinking, downloading and reinstalling FF 16.0.1 wasn't going to magically revert my Permissions.sqlite file to whatever it had been before FF 17. Because the hostperm file I generated from it with the ExExceptions extension didn't drop off at some point, say in the F section of the alphabetacal list, but continued all of the way down through the Zs, I used the ExExceptions hostperm file I made last night as my hostperm.1 file, renamed my Permissions.sqlite file, and opened FF 17.

That seemed to have worked.

When I opened FF 17 last night, I had four FF windows with up to ten tabs per window. (I'm working on several projects.) It seemed like I had to slog through 100 cookies, and that is probably close to the actual number. Each time I was opening FF 17, I had to go through the same cookies, so I was pretty sure nothing was being written to my Permissions.sqlite file. After using the hostperm file created from FF 17, when I opened FF 17 this morning, I had about five cookies that needed to be dealt with. I was happy. I'm confident that those five will not pop up again after shutting down and reopening FF again.

Thanks for your fix -ck-. Here's hoping I don't have to go through this again with FF 18.

[Spurred_On]

I just shut down and reopened FF 17. All four FF windows opened with all tabs loading. No cookies popped up. Problem solved. Thanks all.

[-ck-]

I am already using Firefox 18 and once the bad rules are removed it definitely works again.

So at least three total people have reported a problem with scheme:file being present.

Which means to test this, mozilla team can simply add a rule to allow popups or allow cookies for a local html file.

ie.

Code: Select all

host   popup   1   scheme:file

But I know there are other rules that broke it too.

I think this was one of them

Code: Select all

host   popup   1   e

and maybe leading dot domains

[yskyflyer]

Steps to create permissions.sqlite with sqlitebrowser that works with FF 16 But not with FF 17
It's not a Particular bad rule but

Lots of Programs touch permissions.sqlite like Spybot-S&D SpywareBlaster CCleaner so i'm going to generate one with only one or a few entries that works with FF 16 but not 17 with sqlitebrowser Export and Re import

Good
cp -f /home/name/Downloads/profileCtest/permissions-CtestSet-ReImport-Broken.sqlite /home/name/Downloads/profileCtest/permissions.sqlite
moznightly --date=2012-08-26 --profile=/home/name/Downloads/profileCtest

Bad
cp -f /home/name/Downloads/profileCtest/permissions-CtestSet-ReImport-Broken.sqlite /home/name/Downloads/profileCtest/permissions.sqlite
moznightly --date=2012-08-27 --profile=/home/name/Downloads/profileCtest

regressionwindow
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/p ... 2012-08-27
And there are a few commits that change permission
Bug 785631 Bug 784878 Bug 619236 Bug 777072

steps
Grab a fresh FF 17 (older win32 FirefoxPortable beta ok)

Tools Options Privacy
uncheck accept cookies
click exceptions
html-kit.com
Allow

Go to
http://www.html-kit.com/tools/cookietester/
and set a cookie

Reopen FF and cookie Still work

Copy permissions.sqlite to permissions-CtestSet-Works.sqlite

Close FireFox

http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/
in sqlitebrowser (SQLite Database Browser 2.0 b1.exe)
File Open Database permissions.sqlite with sqlitebrowser
Export database to sql file
Close database
Import database from sql file & Yes creast new dadabase file (permissions-CtestSet-ReImport-Broken.sqlite)
Close database

Replace permissions.sqlite with your new file

Open Firefox
http://www.html-kit.com/tools/cookietester/

No Cookies Shown until you re add exception and if you restart it doesn't persist

Grab a FF 16 and both permissions.sqlite before and after sqlitebrowser Export Import work.

[hide]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[/hide]

It's a .zip with permissions-CtestSet-ReImport-Broken.sqlite & permissions-CtestSet-Works.sqlite
http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp
decode the data from a Base64 string (base64 decoding)
export to a binary file, filename: Profile.zip
Convert The source Data

[Spurred_On]

I definitely do not have scheme:file in my hostperm.1 file, nor a : anywhere in it, so I fit the "some other rule" group. Merely creating a new hostperm.1 file and deleting the FF 17 Permissions.sqlite file worked for me without ever making any corrections to the hostperm.1 file.

Guess I'll never know what entry broke my Permissions.sqlite file, but it's not one that seems to be covered by what's been suggested above. However, something in my Permissions.sqlite file did not affect FF 16.0.1 and broke FF 17. What was changed in FF 17 that made Permissions.sqlite so critical? Not specific lines within the file itself, but rather some criteria relevant to Permissions.sqlite changed in Ff 17. Studying that change might help come up with a more general rule, rather than writing a new rule for each individual bad line in Permissions.sqlite every time some user has a new bad entry in his Permissions.sqlite file.

[Gopher John]

I strongly suspect that SpyBot Search & Destroy's immunizations caused my problems with the update to Firefox 17 from Firefox 16.0.2. On my WinXP machine, I'd removed the immunizations via SpyBot S&D before removing the program. Firefox was closed while doing this. However, when Firefox updated to 17 the immunizations reappeared and some cookie permissions disappeared. The Permissions.sqlite was corrupted and would no longer save after Firefox restart. Obviously, SpyBot S&D didn't remove it's immunizations from the file. Why I didn't see them in any of the profiles on WinXP while using Firefox 16.0.2 after removing immunizations, but did in Firefox 17, I don't know.

I installed exexceptions in Firefox 17 profiles. On Firefox restart, I went to Firefox Options and removed all SpyBot S&D immunizations manually from all the places it was added for the profile. Without closing Firefox, I used exexceptions to export a Hostperm.1 file. I closed Firefox and deleted Permissions.sqlite, put Hostperm.1 in the profile folder and restarted Firefox. There were no bad entries in Hostperm.1, possibly because I exported from Firefox 17. This fixed my problem, and I only had to accept cookies for the few domains that were removed by the corruption. All is well now.

I had to do the same thing on my Win7 SP1 machine, even though SpyBot Search & Destroy has never been on this machine. However, I'd copyied over the profiles from the WinXP machine before deimmunization, bringing the problem with it. All is fixed now.

I may be playing with fire, but I am using SpywareBlaster on both machines. I'm backing up all profiles anyway, so there's a way back. This has been a learning experience. Thanks to those that paved the way.

[VanillaMozilla]

-ck- and yskyflyer, I don't know who your intended audience is, but this is the Support Forum, not Bugzilla. And this is not a good place to attach encoded files.