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Websites not keeping me signed in

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Hello,

When I sign in to new websites, they never do keep me logged in. I noticed this problem is present only for services that are working for my friends, that use other browsers, so they can keep users signed in. For the websites that I had been logged in before it stopped working, I'm still signed in and I can enjoy not having to log in every time.

I believe it all started happening when I cleared my cookies once, around half a year ago.

I did however check my settings, and I don't have selected option, that clears cookies after each browser session. My password saving feature works as well.

Hello, When I sign in to new websites, they never do keep me logged in. I noticed this problem is present only for services that are working for my friends, that use other browsers, so they can keep users signed in. For the websites that I had been logged in before it stopped working, I'm still signed in and I can enjoy not having to log in every time. I believe it all started happening when I cleared my cookies once, around half a year ago. I did however check my settings, and I don't have selected option, that clears cookies after each browser session. My password saving feature works as well.

All Replies (5)

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Hi, it's odd that sites that Firefox kept persistent cookies for sites that set them before the change, and now it doesn't seem to keep any persistent cookies.

On a site where you have a problem, could you check the Storage Inspect (Shift+F9). The cookie list has an Expires / Max-Age column (you might need to add it by right-clicking another column heading and choosing from the list) which shows how long Firefox was instructed to keep the cookie. Are you seeing only Session cookies for the site?

Do you recall changing any privacy settings recently? In particular, I'm thinking of a setting called Global Privacy Control which was added in Firefox 120. It is not enabled by default. Maybe some sites don't set persistent cookies when you use this setting? To experiment with that possibility:

  • Open the Settings page
  • In the tiny search box, slowly type global until "Tell websites not to sell or share my data" comes into view
  • If that has been turned on, turn it off and then test one of the problem sites in a new tab and see whether it starts setting persistent cookies again
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Hi, Thanks for the quick response.

I just checked, and on one of the sites that keeps signing me off, I have "autologin_token" that is set to expire: Sun, 11 Feb 2024 23:40:25 GMT, so that would explain it. However I don't understand why it doesn't refresh it, since its clearly expired. Perhaps its a problem for that website. Other websites did actually remember me now, perhaps for the time until I close my session. I also see that for most of websites that I need to keep logging in, I don't use them very frequently, and they have short auto_login time in cookies (3-14 days).

As a fun fact it didn't remember my account when I wanted to post this question.

As of changing my settings, no, I haven't touched anything in ages. The global thing wasn't enabled so I didn't bother turning it on and off to see if it would help.

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You can use these steps to make a website recognize and remember you.

  • create a cookie allow exception with the proper protocol (https:// or http://) to make a website remember you

You can check that you aren't clearing important cookies.

  • using "Clear history when Firefox closes" in 102+ honors exceptions and keeps cookies with an allow exception, previous versions removed all cookies

Make sure to keep the "Site settings".

  • clearing "Site settings" clears exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, and software installation and exceptions for passwords and other website specific data
  • Settings -> Privacy & Security
    Cookies and Site Data: "Manage Exceptions"
  • Settings -> Privacy & Security
    Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history":
    [X] "Clear history when Firefox closes" -> Settings
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If I understand correctly, to create a cookie exception for website to remember me, I would have to manually do it for every single website I want to be kept signed in on?

I don't have "Clear history when Firefox closes" selected.

As a continuation to me stating earlier, that some websites may keep me logged in for just enough time, for me to not notice... I had autologin cookie for gitlab.com that had expiration date set to 14th March 2025, and it still logged me off when I went to sleep. Perhaps it clears cookies even when I ask it not to.

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To create a cookie exception, I usually do this:

  • Call up the Page Info dialog using Ctrl+i
  • Click Permissions to display a panel allowing me to change site permissions
  • Scroll down to Set Cookies, uncheck the Use default box, then click Allow

If Allow is already your default, this shouldn't be necessary. However, if your default is Allow for Session (like mine), than this should help.