In your profile are any of these files locked:

permissions.sqlite and content-prefs.sqlite and cookies.sqlite

And does this happen in a new profile?

• Profile Manager - Create, remove or switch Firefox profiles

Make sure that you do not run Firefox in permanent Private Browsing mode (Never remember history).

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Private+Browsing

• Firefox > Preferences > Privacy > Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history"
• Deselect: [ ] "Always use Private Browsing mode"

Thank you both for trying, but this isn't working: In the first instance above, I was not able to view my profile, only create a new one, which I have previously done to no effect. Re the second instance, I have never used private browsing. (My biggest wish during my lifetime on this planet, is for software developers to STOP changing everything all the time, and just make the thing work and then LEAVE IT ALONE!!! [End Rant Zone.] Sorry about that.

If clearing cookies didn't help then it is possible that the cookies.sqlite file that stores the cookies got corrupted.

• Rename (or delete) cookies.sqlite (cookies.sqlite.old) and if present delete cookies.sqlite??_s and cookies.sqlite??_w in the Firefox profile folder in case cookies.sqlite got corrupted.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

• Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox

You can try to clear the cache folder manually, see the about:cache page for the location.

• /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/Cache

There was not "Cache" at that location, but I deleted everything in that location (Llibrary/Firefox/Profiles/) and the unwanted cache remains firmly intact and in control.

To be clear, I first deleted the cookies.sqlite file, and then deleted the whole profiles folder. NB, there were no cookies.sqlite??_s or cookies.sqlite??_w anywhere that I could find. In any event, the unwanted cache has survived intact and in control.

If the disk cache is in place then it should be in the location as shown on the about:cache page.

Did you look in that location?

Note that the name of the cache is probably cache2.

• /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/cache2/

In Mac OS X v10.7 and later, the ~/Library folder is a hidden folder.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders#Mac_OS_X

I cannot find "about:cache page" but I did delete the invisible cache2 folder from

Home/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/<profile>/cache2/ and I did delete the "cookies.sqlite" folder. (I'm running 10.6.8.)

None of this appears to have had any effect whatsoever on either caches or cookies.

How do you know that clearing cookies and cache in Firefox isn't working?

What actions are you trying to do and how do you check the results?

Can you attach a screenshot?

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem

• Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
• Make sure that you do not exceed the maximum size of 1 MB

Good question! As a website designer (from a sales-centric rather than tech-centric perceptive) I need to revisit websites freshly without knowing which links my computer has visited before. Therefore, I do not want my cache to change the color (or any other indicator) of visited links: I want Firefox to clear my cache every time that I quit the application as I have my preferences set to do. That has worked reliably for years. Now, unfortunately, suddenly after an update to v39.0, I can no longer avoid seeing my visited links. Until now, when I quit and relaunched Firefox, everything was fresh and new: no evidence of visited links… What has changed?

Do you keep tabs open or are you closing all open tabs before closing Firefox?

If something goes wrong and Firefox wasn't able to clear all data that is selected via the "Clear history when Firefox closes" settings then Firefox should try again on the next start.

What items are selected in the "Clear history when Firefox closes" settings?

You need to clear the browsing history and not only the cache to remove the visited status. Clearing the cache only ensures that Firefox retrieves a fresh copy of a website on the next start/visit.

Note that on Mac you need to quit the Firefox application and not close all open windows to make "Clear history when Firefox closes" work.

• Mac: Firefox > Quit

Yes, I keep tabs open and they normally restore on launch even though the cookies and caches (including visited links) normally delete as specified in my prefs. That is what I had been doing and still want to do.

I just cleared the histories and yes, you are right, the visited links are now gone. But so are my open tabs. That is a disaster (unless you think only of things like war, famine, and pestilence as actual disasters -- which I do, so no real harm done).

To my experience, this is a radical change in application functionality because clearing cache and cookies used to clear the visited links without clearing the open tabs. Now I have no idea what those 8-10 open tabs were, and I kept them open in order to know what they were while I was intentionally clearing the visited links. Oh well.

[Begin rant zone:] Argh! I'm an unhappy camper tonight. I'm sure that I will recover, but I genuinely, sincerely wish that software developers would just make their applications work well and consistently and then LEAVE THEM ALONE!!! Just keep them working well while everyone else changes everything else. That's enough good work to be done. [End rant zone.]

Thank you for enlightenment with regard to this issue. Without irony or ill will, I get a LOT for the enormous price I paid for Firefox. So my thanks are as genuine as my laments.

Btw, I may have a terrible memory, so the only reason why I believe that I have not changed my prefs is that I spent a lot of time experimenting with prefs to determine what they should be and then I just don't change them. So what changed?

Yes, clearing the history via "Clear history when Firefox closes" will prevent reopening currently open tabs on the next start. You would have to clear the history manually if you want to reset visited links, but keep the tabs. You can do that in the sidebar for only specific domains or dates or use Clear Recent history.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/remove-recent-browsing-search-and-download-history

Thank you very much for these instrux. The new found ability to delete the history of a single website is a useful tool in my workflow. FYI, the function seems somewhat flawed in that 2 of 3 consecutive trials yielded 100% deletion of visited links while the third deleted some but not all visited links. Not a biggie, but inconsistencies of this kind tend to make worry that my OS is going senile…