You may have a corrupt cookies.sqlite file.

Type about:support in the address bar and press enter.

Under the page logo on the left side you will see Application Basics. Under this find Profile Folder. To it’s right press the button Show Folder. This will open your file browser to the current Firefox profile. Now Close Firefox.

Locate the cookies.sqlite file. Then rename or delete it. Restart Firefox.

thanks fredmcd. i thought that would work but it didnt.

i attached some screenshots of my privacy settings. these are the same settings that worked before the 41.01. update

You should keep the cookies from domains that have an allow exception with your set up.

You can try to exclude the "Active Logins" to see if that makes a difference.

Do you have security or cleanup software that might delete the cookies?

cor-el said

You should keep the cookies from domains that have an allow exception with your set up. You can try to exclude the "Active Logins" to see if that makes a difference. Do you have security or cleanup software that might delete the cookies?

tried excluding active logins. that didnt work. i tried this config on three different machines, all do not keep cookies for the sites i allow.

i am convinced the functionality broke with the latest ff update since i know it was working before.

would be nice though if mozilla just made it easier to save cookies for certain sites. IE does it simply. just enable the option to preserve cookies for favorites. easy. to me the FF cookie exception list was intended to tell FF which to accept, not which not to delete. feels like a workaround. just sayin