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Cookies do not get deleted / re-appear within seconds if I delete them manually and yes I've checked every single support page about this and it didn't help

  • 3 replies
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  • Last reply by crabpaws

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– I have the most recent version of Firefox. – I have my settings in Preferences -> Privacy on "Keep third party cookies until I close Firefox". – I've checked "Clear history when Firefox closes" and have ticked every single box under settings (except saved passwords). – But still, Cookies do not get deleted when I close Firefox – there are hundreds of cookies every time I open it. – If I go to Tools -> Clear recent history, choose "everything" and tick every single box, history etc. get deleted but the cookies remain. – If I go to Preferences -> Privacy and click "Show Cookies" and then click "Remove all cookies" twice, the cookies disappear, but they're back just seconds later. – I've even tried going to Preferences, clicking on Exceptions and manually adding some of the websites that showed up under "show cookies" and blocking them and then deleting the cookies, but still they re-appeared within seconds, and the exceptions were blank again. – I've checked all your support pages about this topic. – I've seen this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/740598?esab=a&as=aaq and tried it and it didn't help. – I've seen this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/936308?esab=a&as=aaq and this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/868910?esab=a&as=aaq, and yes I do use "Do Not Track Plus" and some of the Cookies seem to be Opt-Out-Cookies but most are not.

Please help me. I used to be a big fan of Firefox but this is getting really scary.

– I have the most recent version of Firefox. – I have my settings in Preferences -> Privacy on "Keep third party cookies until I close Firefox". – I've checked "Clear history when Firefox closes" and have ticked every single box under settings (except saved passwords). – But still, Cookies do not get deleted when I close Firefox – there are hundreds of cookies every time I open it. – If I go to Tools -> Clear recent history, choose "everything" and tick every single box, history etc. get deleted but the cookies remain. – If I go to Preferences -> Privacy and click "Show Cookies" and then click "Remove all cookies" twice, the cookies disappear, but they're back just seconds later. – I've even tried going to Preferences, clicking on Exceptions and manually adding some of the websites that showed up under "show cookies" and blocking them and then deleting the cookies, but still they re-appeared within seconds, and the exceptions were blank again. – I've checked all your support pages about this topic. – I've seen this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/740598?esab=a&as=aaq and tried it and it didn't help. – I've seen this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/936308?esab=a&as=aaq and this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/868910?esab=a&as=aaq, and yes I do use "Do Not Track Plus" and some of the Cookies seem to be Opt-Out-Cookies but most are not. Please help me. I used to be a big fan of Firefox but this is getting really scary.

All Replies (3)

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You can't remove opt-cookies that are added by an extension unless you disable or uninstall that extension, so you can disable the do not track extension as a test to see if that allows to remove the cookies.


If clearing cookies doesn't work then it is possible that the cookies.sqlite file that stores the cookies is corrupted.

Rename (or delete) cookies.sqlite (cookies.sqlite.old) and delete other present cookie files like cookies.sqlite-journal in the Firefox Profile Folder in case the file cookies.sqlite got corrupted.

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

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder
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I've also deleted the cookies.sqlite etc. many times, cookies go away for maybe a minute but come back. Also on Mac OS X 10.6.8, Firefox 19.0.2 (but had the problem on 17.0, too, like the OP).

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I see there are longstanding bug reports having to do with cookies that refuse to be deleted, see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/938865#answer-418774

This is enough to make me give up on Firefox. Deleting cookies is a basic privacy function!