Help me fix my firefox, please!

December 21, 2009 7:46 AM

I've somehow managed to screw up my firefox and keep it from auto-logging in. I've tried all the things I found when searching. Can someone help?

I've checked my settings, I've cleared my cookies, I've done everything that google has suggested, but I still have to type my name and password every time I log in to facebook, twitter, google, or MF. Any ideas about what I've done wrong?

posted by jefficator to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

For what it's worth, some sites don't seem to auto-login for me either using Firefox. Those include twitter and facebook. I use a greasemonkey script called facebook autologin to make facebook stay logged in. For Google I have this problem but the issue is that I use a few different apps that have different logins associated with them. So my email and most tools are under my main naem, but I also use NetNewsWire which syncs with Google Reader using a different login and when I've been using this, gmail gets "confused" as to which login to use and it seems that one supercedes the other.

I also use a few privacy-related scripts like Adblock Plus and BetterPrivacy that may be blocking cookies that these sites require in order to facilitate this. Have you tried checking through youer addons and scripts to see if that makes a difference?
posted by jessamyn at 7:52 AM on December 21, 2009

Response by poster: Ah. I have adblock running. I wonder if that's it?
posted by jefficator at 8:00 AM on December 21, 2009

Try Last Pass as a PW manager replacement?
posted by jckll at 8:01 AM on December 21, 2009

Nope, I hope someone else does though. Sometime in the last couple of years I've developed the same problem. I've tried re-installing firefox, etc. many times. If I keep the browser open things stay logged in/cookied. If I close the browser I'm logged out of everything again. Typing a few letters of my username and selecting it will populate the password box but I never automatically login w/out having to type something in. Very annoying.
posted by thylacine at 8:18 AM on December 21, 2009

I've experienced a similar problem before. I had to rename one of the sqlite files to force firefox to recreate it on relaunch and remember usernames and passwords again.

I believe this is the advice I followed.
posted by ktrey at 8:35 AM on December 21, 2009

I've seen FF profiles get 'corrupted' (for lack of a better term) where something just goes wonky after a couple of years doing the same thing. My fix for it is to start a new profile, and copy the good relevant bits over between the old and new profiles.
posted by deezil at 8:44 AM on December 21, 2009

In your Preferences, Security, do you have "Remember passwords for sites" checked? Is your target listed in the "Exceptions"?

It could be that the web site goes out of its way to prevent you from saving passwords. You may want to bookmark this link: "Remember Passwords" and use it when you're about to log in somewhere that usually uses tricks to cripple your password-remembering web browser. It will clobber the well-known tricks the authors/programmers use a and make a log-in form behave normally.
posted by cmiller at 8:54 AM on December 21, 2009

Ah, nice. MeFi content filter strikes again. Ask google for a link, since MeFi breaks it.
posted by cmiller at 8:55 AM on December 21, 2009