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Unable to delete old certificate from browser

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I'm experiencing the same problem as described by the user in the post at [1] --- in short, every time I delete an old certificate from my browser, it appears to be successful, but then when I refresh firefox I see that the old certificate is in fact still there. I tried the solutions described in [1] (deleting the cert9.db and cert8.db with firefox closed) but my problem persists. Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm using Firefox 106.0.5 on Mac OS Catalina.


1. https://support.mozilla.org/bm/questions/1272865

I'm experiencing the same problem as described by the user in the post at [1] --- in short, every time I delete an old certificate from my browser, it appears to be successful, but then when I refresh firefox I see that the old certificate is in fact still there. I tried the solutions described in [1] (deleting the cert9.db and cert8.db with firefox closed) but my problem persists. Any help would be much appreciated. I'm using Firefox 106.0.5 on Mac OS Catalina. 1. https://support.mozilla.org/bm/questions/1272865

All Replies (6)

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You did made sure that Firefox wasn't running when you removed cert9.db ?

On Mac closing Firefox can be more complicated because you can close all open windows, but keep Firefox running with the menu bar visible or minimized in the Doc.

Make sure to use "Quit Firefox" with all windows still open, especially if you want to use "Restore Previous Session". Otherwise check "History -> Restore Previous Session" and "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows".

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).

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Hi,

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I am sure Firefox was closed when I deleted the cert9.db --- I used "Quit Firefox" as you suggested.

This morning, instead of deleting things, I tried renaming all my cert* files to cert*OLD1(2) (apparently I have two profiles). Unfortunately doing this didn't help. It looks to me like the cert9.db keeps being regenerated --- I rename it to cert9OLD, and then when I check again after restarting Firefox, I have a new cert9.db in one of my profiles only.

Do you have any further suggestions?

Thanks very much for your time!

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Firefox will always create a new cert9.db file as this file is also used to store cached intermediate certificates send by websites for future use, so the profile where you see this file appear is your current profile.

Do you see those certificate under one of the tabs in the Certificate Manager?

  • Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Certificates -> View Certificates

There is a pref setting on about:config to import certificates from the OS store, I don't know if this also is supported on Mac.

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Are you suggesting changing the security.enterprise_roots.enabled from false to true?

Thanks.

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No, false should be OK unless you would want to import certificates automatically.

Do you have a cert_override.txt file in the profile folder ?

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I do indeed have a cert_override.txt in my profile folder. I renamed it to cert_overrideOLD2.txt, so I think it shouldn't be doing anything now (I could be wrong).