Do not use Clear Recent History to clear the "Cookies" and the "Site Preferences"

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

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

Thanks for the reply. However, I don't use Clear Recent History. I use Private Browsing Mode with Accept Cookies enabled but not Third Party Cookies. So whenever I close the browser all the cookies are removed. I have also just discovered that I cannot change my settings from Use Custom Settings for History to Never Remember History, it always reverts back to Use Custom Settings. Could they be part of the same problem? And if so what is the problem and what is the solution? I assume that in the case of msn the cookies would count as third party and shouldn't be accepted.

If you run Firefox in Private Browsing then exceptions work just like in normal mode, but all cookies are session cookies and expire at the end of the PB mode session or if you close Firefox (Keep until is grayed).

Choosing the "Use custom settings for history" setting doesn't make any changes to history and cookie settings.
Firefox shows the "Use custom settings for history" setting as an indication that at least one of the history and cookie settings is not the default to make you aware that changes were made.
If all History settings are default then the custom settings are hidden and you see "Firefox will: (Never) Remember History".
Never Remember History" means that Private Browsing is active and "Always use private browsing mode" gets a check mark.

Thanks again for the reply, but I am still a bit confused. With my current settings of Private browsing, accepting cookies but not third party cookies (and a default 'Use custom settings for History') should exceptions to accept cookies be cleared at the end of the session or not?

No, exceptions should only be cleared if you clear the Site Preferences, but you can't do that if you are in PB mode AFAIK (Clear Recent History is disabled).

Thanks yet again. But this brings me back to my original question which is why are the MSN exceptions being cleared. They clearly should not be and I should not be redirected to the MSN homepage. Any ideas about what else might be causing this?

Hotmail automatically redirects you to the MSN site after you sign off.
If third-party cookies aren't enabled then Hotmail can't log you out properly (displays an error page) and you shouldn't get redirected to MSN.
I use that trick to prevent that (I don't want to enable third-party cookies anyway).

My third party cookies are not enabled yet I get redirected to the MSN homepage. Until recently I used to get the error page but then MSN homepage started appearing again. Which is why I wanted to not allow their cookies. Why am I getting redirected to the MSN homepage? And why are the exceptions being cleared?

I hadn't been on Hotmail recently and they indeed seem to have fixed the problem with clearing the third-party cookies that didn't work before.
I don't think that there is much to do about it as it even happens if I disable the redirect.
That makes it much harder to check out multiple Hotmail accounts, so I'm glad that I moved to gmail a while back as that loads much faster and also allows the password manager to work.

I can't think of any reason why the exceptions get cleared.

Are other exceptions cleared as well if you make any for cookies, images, pop-ups? Which exceptions do you see if you open the about:permissions page via the location bar?

You can try to rename the file "permissions.sqlite" to permissions.sqlite.sav in the Firefox Profile Folder in case the file is corrupted.

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Open Containing Folder

Hi again, the list in about:permissions has c.uk.msn.com as blocked for cookies, but I entered all the cookies for msn in the exception list. I will try that again and see what happens. One thing I did notice is that I had cookies set on Allow instead of allow for session. Is that a default setting in Private browsing? I have changed it to allow for session and see if that helps too. I have since discovered that I can block any domain via my wireless router and MSN is on the list :).

Thanks for all your help. Re Gmail, I use it at work and I dont find it very user friendly. I hate hotmail but have yet to find anything better. Yahoo is even more intrusive.