Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Firefox Forgetting Your Logins and History?

Ever had this happen? You log in to some site on the Web, you check the box that says "Remember me" or "Keep me signed in," you come back to that site at some later time (after having restarted Firefox), but you aren't logged in. Annoying, isn't it?

Here are four things to check. The instructions are specific to Firefox 3.5.x, but the same logic applies -- and you should be able to figure things out from here -- if for some reason you're still using an earlier version.

  1. Make sure you're allowing cookies to be set

  2. Make sure you haven't set Firefox to clear your history when you close your browser

  3. Make sure you didn't visit the site you want to remember you in Private Browsing Mode

  4. If the above all seem to be in order, then it's possible your cookies database file got corrupted. In this case, you should close Firefox, find the file named cookies.sqlite and delete it. Then restart Firefox. You'll have to re-login one more time, but from then on, you should be remembered.

Some details:

To verify that you're allowing cookies to be set, that you're not clearing your history at the end of the session, and that you're not starting in Private Browsing Mode, do Tools → Options and click the Privacy icon in the toolbar at the top of the pop-up window. If you see "Firefox will: Remember history," you're probably good. If it's set to "Never remember history," change it, and click "OK."

You can confirm other settings by changing the above setting to "Custom," which will cause more options to appear. Confirm that the boxes "Accept cookies from sites" and "Accept third party cookies" are checked, and the "Keep until:" drop-down box is set to "they expire." Also, make sure the box labeled "Clear history when Firefox closes" is unchecked. Finally, make sure the box labeled "Automatically start Firefox in a private browsing session" is unchecked. If everything is fine, click "Cancel;" if you had to make changes, click "OK."

The location of your cookies.sqlite file depends on what system you're using. On Windows, it'll be buried deep within the bowels of your Documents and Settings folder. The path to mine is as follows:

C:\Documents and Settings\brendan\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\d54ndgnk.default

The "brendan" and "d54ndgnk" part will probably be different for you.

Anyway, get yourself to that folder, delete cookies.sqlite (and oh, what the hell, cookies.sqlite-journal while you're there), and Firefox should start remembering things again. If Windows won't allow you to delete these files, then you forgot to close Firefox. Close it, wait a few seconds, and try again.

Lemme know if you've got any questions or additional tips, please.

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