Userid prompt - cannot delete suggestions
So, I accidentally clicked a link that takes me to a site I have never logged into. Firefox prompts me with 3 userids. One is more or less a throwaway, but two are for sites I want to be secure.
I have disabled the form history in options. I have selected each item and tried either delete or shift-delete. None of these options work.
The site continues to present me with 3 userid options.
I hope this is not a major security threat since I am the only user on this computer and the site is one I have never visited, but it worries me nonetheless that I cannot remove the Firefox suggestions.
All Replies (17)
Do the user names have a key icon, indicating a saved login? Here's an example (attached):
If so, use the "View Saved Logins" button at the bottom to manage those.
Or does the site use a social sign-in that may be leveraging usernames for Google, Facebook, or other accounts?
By the way, the current release of Firefox is version 84.0.1, while your Firefox reported itself as version 82. Is there any reason you are holding off on updating that we might be able to help with?
No, there is no "key" icon next to the userids.
As to why I'm still on Version 82? I depend entirely on Firefox for my work and every new release brings with it the possibility that something I depend on won't work. Also, my method for updating is a bit complicated, so I normally upgrade only every other month or so.
Could you test the mystery page in a private window to rule out any cached data or cookie-based suggestions?
Still shows the 3 userids.
Hmm, it's hard to think of any other source for this data other than Form History, which you turned off by unchecking the box for "Remember search and form history". But it also does not behave like form history because items can't be deleted.
Random thought:
If you right-click just next to/above/below the username box, does the menu have a "This Frame" item? If so, expand that and try Open Frame in New Tab to get its actual address into the address bar.
Or could it be address autofill? Usually, just an email address field doesn't trigger that, but perhaps somewhere in the form there are some other fields related to address autofill.
No, not a frame. And I changed the options so Firefox wouldn't fill in maililng addresses.
I've looked at the source code for the page and can't see anything obvious, but I'm not an HTML programmer, although there is this:
$elements = {"login":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Submit"}},"add-facebook":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Add Facebook"}},"add-twitter":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Add Twitter"}},"add-google":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Add Google"}},"remove-facebook":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Remove Facebook"}},"remove-twitter":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Remove Twitter"}},"remove-google":{"tracking":{"type":"o","label":"Remove Google"}},
The userids in question go back many years, way before I had a Facebook id (which is not one of the three). My Twitter userid is quite different as is my Google userid.
Suggestions that has a key icon in front are saved logins. Items without this key icon are saved form data.
Try to rename/remove formhistory.sqlite in the Firefox profile folder with Firefox closed.
You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.
- Help -> Troubleshooting Information -> Profile Folder/Directory:
Windows: Open Folder; Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data
I checked the Security for the site (page info), cleared data & cookies. Didn't help.
You can remove all data stored in Firefox for a specific domain via "Forget About This Site" in the right-click context menu of an history entry ("History -> Show All History" or "View -> Sidebar -> History").
Using "Forget About This Site" will remove all data stored in Firefox for this domain like history and cookies and passwords and exceptions and cache, so be cautious. If you have a password or other data for that domain that you do not want to lose then make sure to backup this data or make a note.
You can't recover from this 'forget' unless you have a backup of involved files.
If you revisit a 'forgotten' website then data for that website will be saved once again.
Will try the formhistory.sqlite tomorrow.
Forgetting the web site didn't help, although it did competely remove the web paget from my history. By the time I got back to the problem, I'd forgotten the web site's name.
But, I discovered another web site that gave the exact same 3 userid prompts. This time, I renamed formhistory.sqlite and that fixed it!
Thank you.
So, this is weird. I accidentally hit that site again where the userid prompts turned up. This time there was only one suggestion - and the userid was for a site I visit a couple of times a month. It is a unique id.
This prompt does NOT seem to appear on any other site that I log into periodically.
I don't understand how the two sites are "connected". I know I can delete the formhistory.sqlite to get rid of the prompt, but I wish I understood what is happening.
If you right-click next to the form field, is there a "This Frame" item on the menu? If so, that would indicate the login form is embedded from another site. You can expand This Frame and use View Frame Info to get the URL of the framed page.
Otherwise, ???
Form history doesn't work per domain (origin) like logins, but works by field name, so can get suggestions from other pages when websites use a generic (common) name/id for an input field.
No, there's no frame. And today I saw another ID prompt. The two ids that appear are both unique (each to a different site). This is a home computer so it's not as if a stranger could see the ids, but it is irritating - even though I know I can "erase" them by renaming formhistory.sqlite.
I don't know where the userid prompts come from, but it seems to me that the prompts (whether from Firefox or Google or wherever) should be site specific.