Problems with Firefox & OSX. Might be my cookies!

October 3, 2006 9:30 AM

Strange behavior on Firefox / OSX. I think it might be a problem with cookies.

I use Firefox on OSX (latest versions of both). I'm seeing the following problems:

On google maps, none of my searches are working. If I follow a link to a google map, I can see it and zoom, print, etc., but if I use the search box at the top, nothing happens. It connects to google and refreshes the page, but the map doesn't change and no results are found. I've seen this problem for about a week now.

Then this happened:

I went to Ask MeFi to post this question, and I was logged out. (I never log out). I logged in and it brought me to MeFi front page. I clicked on Ask MeFi and I was logged out. I logged in a couple times and each time I was brought back to the Ask MeFi front page, not logged in.

I use Cookie Culler and have never had a problem. I cleared all of my Metafilter cookies and google map cookies and tried again, getting the same results. Everything works fine on Safari, but I want it to work in Firefox! Any thoughts?

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

Response by poster: Just discovered that in my Firefox preferences, I have it set to allow sites to set cookies (as it should be). But in the list of exceptions (sites that should not be able to set cookies), there's a list of all the sites I visit frequently. How could that have happened?
posted by kdern at 9:33 AM on October 3, 2006

Response by poster: I cleared the list of exceptions and I can log into Ask MeFi now. But I still can't get any results from Google Maps searches!
posted by kdern at 9:34 AM on October 3, 2006

This always happens when I have two browser windows open. If I go back to the original window, then back to the new window, the search box will work. I'd like to find a fix, but in the meantime, that works fine.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:10 AM on October 3, 2006

Response by poster: I have one window open with two tabs. I tried switching back and forth as you've suggested, but it doesn't work.

Google maps searches don't work at all for me... please help!
posted by kdern at 10:21 AM on October 3, 2006

In the Exceptions - Cookies window, you can click on Site (at the top) to get an alphabetical listing, and click on Status to get a list in order of those you Allow, Allow for Session, and Block. Both lists toggle to reverse the order (a-z and z-a). The exceptions that you allow are not really exceptions, so it's a bit of a misnomer. That's why the sites you regularly visit are on the exceptions list.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:21 AM on October 3, 2006

Response by poster: I still can't do google searches... any other ideas?
posted by kdern at 10:39 AM on October 3, 2006

Best answer: Set your privacy/cookie settings to the default, close any cookie managers, and try again. If it works, add things back one by one.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 11:11 AM on October 3, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks Mr. Gunn... it wasn't the cookie manager, but I started disabling extensions and found the problem. The "Always Remember Password" extension was conflicting with Google Maps for some reason. I uninstalled it and everything works fine now.

Thanks all!
posted by kdern at 2:28 PM on October 3, 2006