I can only offer trying the same in FF Troubleshoot mode and see if THAT works - Or a Test Profile as I created to do such testing. Sometimes Troubleshoot fails when a Test Profile succeeds. THAT only tells you there is some setting or Addon in your regular FF that's messing with the site. Have to build back one setting (like Enhanced Tracking Protect) / addon at a time until it breaks again or success continues. Does using FF as the PDF Viewer vs Adobe make any difference?

It will be a few days until I can try these fixes. I don't have any outstanding bills to pay and/or view right now.

I have used Firefox for my online banking for years. Just recently when I go to the bill payment section and click on the drop down list to pay and view a bill, I can pay the bill, but when I try to view the bill the view bill window comes up for a second and the a drop down of the bank's home page comes up.

Do you think it is doing that because it has lost track of the fact that you are signed in? That could be a cookie issue.

The view bill page used to be a PDF file and Adobe Reader is my default.

Just to clarify this, when you view other PDFs, do they automatically download and open in Adobe Reader? Or do they display in Firefox first? The setting to choose between those is described in this article: View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer.

The fact that this does not happen in Microsoft Edge precludes the site forgetting I'm signed in. As to PDF files, my settings are that Adobe Reader is the default application and they open when I click on them in my Firefox browser.

The fact that this does not happen in Microsoft Edge precludes the site forgetting I'm signed in.

That would make sense for older versions, but Firefox recently implemented a feature called Total Cookie Protection that blocks most cross-site cookie reads. This can cause fumbles when sites use multiple servers and require your signed-in status to be read using cross-site cookies.

Try turning off the Enhanced Tracking Protection feature on the main page of your bank's site by clicking the shield icon at the left end of the address bar then clicking the slider switch at the top of the panel. And repeat on other bank pages if you notice that the shield is not slashed on one of their pages. It may be difficult to do this on the site serving the PDF if it redirects immediately...

More info:

• Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for desktop
• Total Cookie Protection and website breakage FAQ

I disabled Enhanced Tracking on the bank's website and it blocked me from entering the bill pay window. When I restored Enhanced Tracking I could get back in.

You could globally turn off Total Cookie Protection and see whether that makes any difference. On the Settings page, click into the Privacy & Security panel. In the Enhanced Tracking Protection section, switch to "Custom" and then lower the cookie blocking to the first level ("Cross-site tracking cookies"):

I turned off Total Cookies and it blocked me from the bill pay site again. I went back into settings and restored Cookies and reloaded all tabs. I was still blocked from bill pay, so I went back into settings and set Enhanced Tracking to Standard. This restored my bill pay page and also restored the ability to view bills. I'm not sure I understand why, but the problem is solved.

I spoke too soon. The next time I went to Bill Pay, the problem was back, even though Enhanced Tracking is set for Standard.

Carl Strand

Hi Carl, does it make any different to choose Custom and uncheck the box for cookie blocking? Obviously this is just a test because you probably don't want to browse most of the web without any cookie filtering.

You can try to create a cookie allow exception for the top level domain like for this forum https://mozilla.org to see if that helps.

I'll give both suggestions a try.

I finally got to try these suggestions and they do not change anything. I'm simply going to use Edge when I want to print a copy of a bill in the Pay my Bills window. I can use Firefox for all other banking needs.