hello axis, please try to reset the browser and see if this solves the issue: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings

Try to delete the permissions.sqlite database file that stores the (cookie) exceptions.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder

In case you are using "Clear history when Firefox closes":

• do not clear the "Cookies" and the "Site Preferences"

• Tools > Options > Privacy > Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history" >
  [X] Clear history when Firefox closes > Settings
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Clear+Recent+History

Note that clearing "Site Preferences" clears all exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, software installation, and passwords.

FWIW, I wrestled with this issue for a couple of hours and then downgraded to 16.0.1 at https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/ Problem solved, at least for now. I have a backup of my permissions.sqlite from earlier this week that I need to restore. Will avoid any upgrade beyond 16.0.1 until I hear the problem is solved.

Hello dzeleznik--

I wish I had read your post earlier. I *didn't* have a backup for permissions.sqlite , or any other backup for Firefox. I followed the first bit of advise in this thread and reset Firefox, the result is that my whole browser was then destroyed. After nearly 10 yrs. of being loyal Firefox user I was not going to try and put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

I appreciated Firefox wanting a secure browser but haven't we had three upgrades in the last 6 weeks addressing similar security issues? And releasing this latest update without testing for this issue was unbelievable....so sadly, after seeing my browser ruined, I uninstalled and moved to Chrome. When a person browses with the default of not accepting cookies and has a list of exceptions for the secure sites they need to visit this was a terrible glitch...and I would have "downgraded" but had no back-up to rely on as you did and when I saw what "troubleshooting" my browser did (left me with a ugly piece of nothing) I had no choice but to change my browser.

It is sad...but farewell Firefox friends...this was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

Regards, Axis

Firefox should be keeping permissions and exceptions if you aren't removing then by using clear history when Firefox closes to remove the site preferences.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Clear+Recent+History

If that isn't the case then you may have cleanup or security software preventing this or the permissions.sqlite file may be corrupted.

You can create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems.

See "Creating a profile":

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Profile_issues

If the new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile, but be careful not to copy corrupted files.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox

@cor-el: should be keeping permissions and exceptions is definitely the operative phrase here. All I can say is that I used SQLite Manager to verify the integrity of my permissions.sqlite file, that 16.0.1 behaves correctly with this file, and that 17.0 fails to save and maintain certain permission exceptions with the same file. Reverting to 16.0.1 with the same permissions.sqlite restored expected behavior for me. I don't really have time to investigate or experiment further.

I'm with dzeleznik . Firefox is a tool for me, not a toy. I don't have any interest in dinking around with it to make it do what's it's supposed to be doing right out of the box. dzeleznik, thanks for the link.

Actually, I am very close to ditching FF entirely. It is increasingly common that I have to go to Chrome to see content that will not display on FF. And now this hassle. The main thing that keeps me is the fact that FF is not AFIK trying to spy on me as the others are.

When this frenetic release-of-the-week behavior started, I expected problems due to inadequate testing. The only surprise to me is that this is the first major regression that I have seen.

"Will avoid any upgrade beyond 16.0.1 until I hear the problem is solved. " Yes.

what firefox extensions & what security related programs are you running on your pc?

Hmmm... more than I remembered!

Possibly Relevant: Better Privacy, Ghostery, Adblock Plus, Advertising Cookie Opt Out

thanks for reporting. & which anti-virus program/firewall/other security tools do you have installed on your pc? maybe other users affected by the same problem can find similarities...

This is Axis again, who started this thead. For you information I had nothing unusual as a add-on...quicktime plugin, adobe plugin, I think a spell-checker, nothing very special. And my security was the same as it has always been, MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials).

And for further confusion, I add this. Yesterday during some free time I installed 17 again (I had nothing retained from my previous installation.) I started trying to set permissions again and when logging into a PHPBB after making an exception to allow cookies I was prompted with a "Do you want Firefox to remember your password" which I had never seen before. I assumed this meant something similar to a password manager which I *don't* want so I answered "No." End result of which was I could not log in at all, I would be recognized for a brief instant and then logged back out....and no way I could find to fix it.

Additionally, it was not retaining permissions beyond a session. This is a Firefox Issue and not a user issue. I miss Firefox but I can't fool around forever trying to get a browser to work. I hope this helps others.

Regards, Axis

hello axis, i can understand your frustration - but most of us contributors here are volunteering users, so please keep this in mind also...

the "remember password" dialog comes from the firefox password manager, however it doesn't have anything to do with keeping you logged-in to a website, it just saves the user credentials & fills them in to the login form the next time you visit a page. what's keeping you logged in would be cookies - so it looks like they get deleted even during a session.

since this is obviously only affecting a part of the user base, something in the setup has to be different from the rest - and the first thing that comes to mind in this respect are extensions (therefore my question about them). but when you had the same issue even immediately after a reset, then it's likely something else going wrong...

There is what appears to be a solution to this problem posted in another Mozilla support forum.

I have used it and it worked for me.

Stephen

Hello madperson--

I respect your "but most of us contributors here are volunteering users" and understand that. I, myself, have tried to contribute a few "solutions" to certain problems other users have had. So I have posted with no anger or blame at any of the people here. However, since this does seem to be an issue that affected enough people to find this thread and the thread above in the "other" Mozilla support forum, I just wish that releases were tested a little more thoroughly before they were, ah, "released." Your comment, "the 'remember password' dialog comes from the firefox password manager" was what I thought too and had nothing to do with cookies and permissions but it was enough of a failure to make me to once again uninstall Firefox completely.

I do miss Firefox, it had/has the best view source code of any browser including my now (reluctantly) default Chrome, that would show coding errors that are very important to a web developer like myself. If you permit me to ramble just a little further I will end this with Forrest Gump's "and that's all I have to say about that."

It "feels" like the "internet world" is becoming a battle-ground between Microsoft and Google and I have preferred not to give either side an advantage in my choices, though some are inevitable. I look forward to the day when Firefox can release a version that works as it is intended to work, and honestly, this is the first time I had an upgrade "go bad" on me. So.... I guess I am frustrated but have meant no disregard to any people here. I hope you understand that.

"that's all I have to say about that."

Regards, Axis

If the current permissions.sqlite file got corrupted somehow during the update then only starting with a fresh file will help.
You may be able to save the current exceptions either via the ExExceptions or with the SQLite Manager extension, but you most likely need to remove the current permissions.sqlite file.

• ExExceptions: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/exexceptions/
• SQLite Manager: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/

SELECT id, host, type, permission, expireType, expireTime, appId, IsInBrowserElement 
FROM moz_hosts
WHERE moz_hosts.id
ORDER BY moz_hosts.id ASC

SELECT id,host,type,permission,expireType,datetime(expireTime/1000,'unixepoch') AS expireTime,appId,IsInBrowserElement
FROM moz_hosts
WHERE moz_hosts.id
ORDER BY moz_hosts.host ASC

Hi everyone,

We are looking into this. Please try the steps listed by cor-el and let us know if they work.

Thanks!

I had the same problem on Firefox 17 on Linux, FF 16.0.2 worked flawless.

It was fixed removing the following cookie exceptions using sqlite3 commandline tool with "DELETE FROM moz_hosts WHERE id=xxxx;" (After I exported and viewed the list using the SQL statements from above)

Perhaps the list can help someone to create a reproduction of the problem to really fix it for all:

9785|-macek.soup.io|cookie|2|0|0||
894|.amd.com|cookie|8||||
914|.funambol.com|cookie|8||||
1244|.google.com|cookie|1||||
3562|.google.de|cookie|1||||
4059|.ibm.com|cookie|1||||
2618|.microsoft.com|cookie|8||||
4350|.mozilla.org|cookie|8||||
502|.opensuse.org|cookie|2||||
632|.recaptcha.net|cookie|8||||
209|.skype.com|cookie|8||||
942|.yahoo.com|cookie|8||||
haegar@aurora:~$ fgrep : /tmp/1
277|2001:748:306:42:0:0:0:2|cookie|1||||
2777|scheme:file|cookie|1||||
haegar@aurora:~$ fgrep -v . /tmp/1
277|2001:748:306:42:0:0:0:2|cookie|1||||
3630|8003|cookie|1||||
4952|8005|cookie|1||||
2586|immob|cookie|1||||
1882|localhost|cookie|1||||
1359|localhost:8003|cookie|1||||
248|localhost:8005|cookie|1||||
5151|widohe|cookie|1||||

After the removals there are still 10553 exceptions set, and they became active again.

Greetings Haegar

I am having the same problem: Cookies-exceptions are not saved after restarting Firefox, even in Safe Mode with add-ons disabled.

The problem started after updating to Firefox 17.0.

(Using Windows XP)

Thanks to everyone who posted and to the Mozilla team for working on the problem.

Hey guys! We've got a bug on file and our QA team is investigating this issue to see if we can find a regression. We are having trouble reproducing it though. Can anyone list crisp, clear, and explicit steps to CONSISTENTLY reproduce this issue? It would definitely help us get to the bottom of it! Thanks!

I have already gone back to 16.1 but here is what happened to me:

I installed 17 and was immediately bombarded with cookie questions. Accept, Session Only, or Block -- all for sites where the cookie question had long since been settled. It only took an hour or two of this to send me here for a solution, so I can't give you any detail about whether 17 was remembering my new answers or not.

The simplest guess is that 17 was not checking the list of already-answered cookie questions before it popped the question to me again.

I installed 16.1 using the link that dzeleznik kindly provided and that was the end of the problem. No dinking with SQLite or anything else, so I doubt that the table was damaged by 17.

I'm not sure why there are only 40+ complaints. Maybe most FF users do not use the "Ask Me" option? Or, as speculated above, is there something odd about some of our setups? Or are people just sucking it up and answering all the cookie questions again?

TIA for the fix.

Edit: One odd thing about my setup: The profile is not stored in the default location. It is on my D:\ drive. Also, I am running XP Tablet SP3.