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logged in websites are not remaining logged in, must re-log in every few hours

  • 25 replies
  • 7 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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hi all i'm having a problem with firefox browser, its not keeping my website logged in. This does not occur after i close my browser but after a few hours of log in, even if i leave the browser opened and come again back later.

I've been using firefox for ages now and never really had this issue. It has only starting happening only recently, since early this week or last week the most.

I've also manually cleared all cookies/log in etc and updated firefox to the latest version maybe it helps, but nothing changed.

Please note that I do not clear history/active log in etc neither it is set up to do it automatically when i close browser also i do not have any 3rd party apps that forbid cookies. I had a firefox addon before but disabled it maybe it was interfering, but it still didnt resolve the problem.

any help much appreciated as it is getting quite irritating. Thanks in advance Lee

hi all i'm having a problem with firefox browser, its not keeping my website logged in. This does not occur after i close my browser but after a few hours of log in, even if i leave the browser opened and come again back later. I've been using firefox for ages now and never really had this issue. It has only starting happening only recently, since early this week or last week the most. I've also manually cleared all cookies/log in etc and updated firefox to the latest version maybe it helps, but nothing changed. Please note that I do not clear history/active log in etc neither it is set up to do it automatically when i close browser also i do not have any 3rd party apps that forbid cookies. I had a firefox addon before but disabled it maybe it was interfering, but it still didnt resolve the problem. any help much appreciated as it is getting quite irritating. Thanks in advance Lee

All Replies (20)

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Hi Lee, do you think it might be a new activity time-out feature of the site? Does the same problem occur in Internet Explorer if you log it in and leave it idle for a while, or is the problem limited to Firefox?

Some sites monitor for changes in connection parameters and require you to log in again if one of them changes. This is a defense against session hijacking. One of the changes mentioned in past threads was IP address. If you use any proxy service or VPN that doesn't have a stable IP address, that could cause the issue.

Otherwise, hmm.

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Hi jscher2000 thanks for your reply. Actually it happens on every website (or at least the ones i'm using) including google, gmail, youtube, facebook and even this forum itself. I had just had to re-log in just now to post my reply, and it has only been like 1 to 1.5hrs since I've posted the original question.

It's something that happens on firefox only, the other browser i use is chrome and so far so good about the IP changing thing i'm not aware about what type of connection i got but its the same as always, in the sense I wasn't notified that my ISP would be changing anything nor did I apply for any changes, so i presume its still the same (especially since chrome works just fine)

i have no idea what it could might be and its frustrating me tbh

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You can try to set privacy.purge_trackers.enabled = false on the about:config page.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can click the button to "Accept the Risk and Continue".


Modified by cor-el

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cor-el said

You can try to set privacy.purge_trackers.enabled = false on the about:config page. You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can click the button to "Accept the Risk and Continue".


thanks for your suggestion I did change that setting to false now, but problem still not solved. had to re login both for this forum and even the google landing page....

I've installed and run CCleaner, and fixed some issue in the registry and deleted some temporary files etc, thought maybe there's something corrupted dunno... but still didn't fix the issue. I'm running out of ideas of what might it be

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I've been experiencing the same—in the past, maybe I'd stay signed into a site for a month or two before I got logged out, but now I'm lucky if it lasts a day. Facebook makes me log in (and go through 2FA stuff) every day or two; Twitter only lasts a few days, and I've had to sign into Adobe every single time today. It's definitely a new problem that started within the past couple of weeks.

I don't use any adblockers, any crazy nonsense like "registry cleaners," or any extensions except for LastPass and a little thing that changes a couple of YouTube defaults.

Modified by Travis

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Hi Travis, do you clear your Firefox history frequently?

If so:

Firefox recently enabled a new form of protection against first-party tracking cookies. They get purged if you haven't visited the site for 30-45 days. Firefox computes the last visit date from -- you guessed it -- your history. This happens approximately every 24 hours.

Assuming you want to keep clearing history, you probably need to turn off this new feature for now (until they come up with another approach). This is the suggestion cor-el gave earlier:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste purge and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the privacy.purge_trackers.enabled preference to switch the value from true to false

Please let us know whether that makes any difference for you.

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No, I never clear my history; I've got stuff from January 2019 in there.

I turned the two purge_trackers options off and I'll see if that makes a difference over the next day or two. I've already gotten inexplicably signed out of Google Maps and YouTube since switching the setting, so I signed in again and I'll see if it continues to happen. But this happens with sites I may have used just an hour or two before, so it doesn't seem related unless the last-visited date code is just completely broken.

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Travis said

I've been experiencing the same—in the past, maybe I'd stay signed into a site for a month or two before I got logged out, but now I'm lucky if it lasts a day. Facebook makes me log in (and go through 2FA stuff) every day or two; Twitter only lasts a few days, and I've had to sign into Adobe every single time today. It's definitely a new problem that started within the past couple of weeks. I don't use any adblockers, any crazy nonsense like "registry cleaners," or any extensions except for LastPass and a little thing that changes a couple of YouTube defaults.

i'm glad im not the only one experiencing such issue, though I must say it sucks to be in the same situation. I just realized that for me its not even holding a few hours (my mistake i said so in the beginning) if i load google, sign in, close the browser, and re open it, i'll have to resign in again! its driving me crazy.

I'm gonna try starting up the laptop and update it to the latest firefox on it aswell and see if it will suffer from the same issues. Meanwhile i think i'll gonna have to switch to chrome no matter how much i prefer(ed) firefox. hopefully it will get fixed eventually

Modified by JC

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Hi Lee, just to confirm, when you exit and restart Firefox, the cookies are gone? And there are no settings or add-ons that clear cookies?

To confirm "before and after" for your cookies, you can use the "Manage Data" dialog on the Options page, Privacy & Security panel, Cookies and Site Data section.

Some little screenshots for reference:

Default setting and Manage Data button:

<center></center>


Cookies set to clear at end-of-session:

<center></center>


Cookies section with automatic private browsing:

<center></center>
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jscher2000 thanks for your help.

Here are a couple of shots from my option window. looks like nothing is set to be automatically deleted right? The exception window comes up empty, no sites listed inside, while when I go to manage I do see a whole list of sites that I visit(ed) including the ones that are normally asking me to re-log in like google, youtube etc.

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The settings look good. I assume Manage Data will have numbers higher than zero in the Cookies column while you are using the sites, but it sounds as though it gets cleared during shutdown, which we haven't yet tracked down. If they aren't cleared, they are still present at startup, but not working, hmm, that would be really hard to explain.

Do you use any external programs that clean up browser data, suchas CCleaner or Advanced SystemCare? Usually they can be set not to touch Firefox data.

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yes some of them are higher, for example youtube is at 20 (no idea what the 20 are for what though)

As for other apps I use CCleaner but it is not an app that runs automatically or stays resident in memory. I only run it like once every few months or so and when I do run it I do expect to re-log in if I clear stuff related to firefox, so it's not the case this time.

However something weird happened just now. For the first time, to reply to your comment I did not have to re-log in again in this support forum....very weird since I had to re log in for all my other replies. oh god this thing is driving me crazy!

I guess the next step is to check the cookie list first thing after boot up tomorrow and see if the list of cookie vanished?

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It's a puzzling case. Usually cookies are cleared when they expire, or using settings/add-ons, when exiting Firefox. They may be cleared by external software when exiting Firefox or restarting the system. It's not normal for most sites' cookies to expire in mid-session.

If you open the Storage Inspector (Shift+F9) on this page, it would normally show a cookie named session_id that expires after about a month -- if you click it, that date will show in a panel on the right, or you can add the Expires / Max-Age column by right-clicking another column heading (like Name or Value) and adding it from the little drop-down list.

If that has an artificially shortened expiration, it usually would be due to an extension or proxy server or other "man in the middle."

Assuming it is set to last, it would not make sense for Firefox to expire it prematurely for no apparent reason. Mysterious.

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just checked it and indeed it expires in (almost) a month's time. attached a small shot of it. i guess what's left is to turn off everything for the night and check again tomorrow to see the cookie list :|

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ok so after boot up i've checked the cookie list, and its still intact like yesterday... however much to my surprise now google did not ask me to re-log in! so far looks like its working back as it should but the thing is i havent touched anything nor did I do further updates or clean up, so I honestly have no idea what has changed since last week or so (since the issue started uptill yesterday)

i'm not sure that the problem is quite solved yet since its too early, but so far both google and this forum did not ask me to re-log in and hope it remains like so

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Flipping the new purge_trackers feature off in about:config also seems to have helped for me—I had to sign in on a few sites soon after doing it, but after that initial wave, I haven't randomly gotten signed out of anything over the past couple of days.

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same exact behaviour here! its very unusual that i had to relogin a couple of times (for the same sites) before it got stable and decided to remain logged ... can't really explain what was/is going on but as long as it remains likeso i'm ok.

Modified by JC

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Just to follow up since it's been more than a week now: it looks like purge_trackers was responsible for the constant logouts—the problem has stopped for me ever since disabling that feature, and I feel quite confident that that was the cause. Thanks for the workaround!

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The 83.0 update turned purge_trackers back on, and now I'm signed out of everything again.

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Travis said

The 83.0 update turned purge_trackers back on, and now I'm signed out of everything again. Is there any kind of diagnostic information you'd like me to provide that could help figure out why this is apparently only happening to some people and not others?

Hi Travis, I don't know why the preference flipped on your Firefox. Does disabling purging allow Firefox to retain the cookies?

The cookies are only supposed to be cleared if they expired or if the site is missing from your browsing history at the time the purge check runs (approximately every 24 hours, unless that has changed).

Do you use any Container tab extensions or Container tab features?

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