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Force sync of cookies in memory to sqlite. Or, disable the cookie cache

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by PJAL

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I do not know the mechanics of when FF updates cookies to the cookies.sqlite DB. Some articles claim that cookies are only saved to the sqlite DB on session close. However, I have found that cookies do get updated to the sqlite DB before the session is closed. However, this is not consistent. The behavior is unpredictable when writing and deleting cookies within short time spans.

I have attempted to use the meta tag to force the html to not cache data but this doe not work. (This would be a nice feature if it worked since I could selectively sync just cookies related to the required pages thus reducing overhead.)

<meta http-equiv="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="no-cache"> <meta http-equiv="Expires" CONTENT="-1">

I do not know the mechanics of when FF updates cookies to the cookies.sqlite DB. Some articles claim that cookies are only saved to the sqlite DB on session close. However, I have found that cookies do get updated to the sqlite DB before the session is closed. However, this is not consistent. The behavior is unpredictable when writing and deleting cookies within short time spans. I have attempted to use the meta tag to force the html to not cache data but this doe not work. (This would be a nice feature if it worked since I could selectively sync just cookies related to the required pages thus reducing overhead.) <meta http-equiv="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="no-cache"> <meta http-equiv="Expires" CONTENT="-1">

Chosen solution

Several issues with cookie behavior. Since there is no sync there is not a good way to know what is stale data. Furthermore, when the same cookie is deleted and then rewritten and read back to the originating page there is a string of cookies listed under the same name. They are the previous cookies that were to be deleted.

I believe using sessionstorage will fulfill my need which is to simply inspect and confirm back end user (cookie) data. I will also be evaluating moving away from cookies and to appstorage.

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All Replies (5)

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Firefox stores cookies separately from the memory cache or disk cache, which are for web pages and selected files.

The SQLite database component may store some changes in temporary files before committing them to the database (see https://sqlite.org/tempfiles.html). I don't know if you can exercise any control over that.

Could you describe what you're trying to do in more detail?

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Set some new cookies and they did not show up in either .sqlite.wal or .sqlite.shm.

I have looked into local storage and this might be an alternative solution.

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Is there a functional issue with the cookies not being returned to the site after being set, or is it just troubling that the cookies are not committed to disk in a timely manner?

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Maybe you can force Firefox to save the cookies to cookies.sqlite by opening a private browsing window as that should make Firefox save all data to the profile folder and switch to in memory storage.

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Chosen Solution

Several issues with cookie behavior. Since there is no sync there is not a good way to know what is stale data. Furthermore, when the same cookie is deleted and then rewritten and read back to the originating page there is a string of cookies listed under the same name. They are the previous cookies that were to be deleted.

I believe using sessionstorage will fulfill my need which is to simply inspect and confirm back end user (cookie) data. I will also be evaluating moving away from cookies and to appstorage.