Firefox 112.0.1 addresses a major cookies issue
Mozilla released Firefox 112.0.1 for all support platforms to address a major issue affecting the use of cookies in the web browser.
The new version of Firefox is available already and most installations should receive the update automatically. Firefox users may speed up the updating by selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox.
The browser displays the installed version on the page and performs a check for updates. It should pick up the Firefox 112.0.1 update at that point to download and install it. Firefox users may also open the release notes website to download the latest version of the web browser from it.
Firefox 112.0.1 addresses a single non-security issue in the web browser. Mozilla has this to say about it: "Fixed a bug where cookie dates appear to be set in the far future after updating Firefox. This may have caused cookies to be unintentionally purged."
Firefox users who updated the browser to version 112, which Mozilla released last week, may have noticed issues related to cookies. Affected users may have noticed that they had to sign-in to websites more frequently than before.
A bug in Firefox's handling of cookies caused the issue. It caused the last used data for affected cookies to be set 4138 years in the future. Firefox might have cleared the cookies then, which meant that users had to login to accounts again and that certain site preferences might have been lost, if saved to cookies.
Mozilla documented the issue on its bug tracking website. The issue affected Firefox 113 and 114 as well, but has been resolved in those builds through updates. Firefox ESR appears to be unaffected by the issue.
Cookie information is accessible via Firefox's Developer Tools interface. Press F12 to open it while on a site that you want to check and switch to the Storage tab. Select Cookies from the menu on the left, and all cookies set by the site and its third-party scripts are listed there.
Firefox users may want to update to the latest version of the browser immediately to address the issue and prevent it from happening in the future.
“Firefox users may want to update to the latest version of the browser immediately to address the issue and prevent it from happening in the future.”
4138 years in the future ?
How to disable firefox use of older version with newer profile. I can only choose exit or create new profile. Give me the choice to run regardless.
@fox, just write at adress bar about:profiles, you will see the profiles that can be deleted.
@fox, you can also open firefox with the execute command (right click windows icon), writing the next command: firefox -p
Thank you!
The issue with Firefox icons being created in the Dock at every close/shut down was not fixed in this release at least.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/04/13/all-firefox-users-are-now-protected-better-against-online-tracking/#comment-4563746
I am writing this comment using Firefox 102.0.10 ESR portable just to confirm that this version works 100% functional, no issues, all is working as expected in an out-of-the-box version. No config needed to see an entire website, so please Mozilla guys fix the total cookie protection of 112!
We (me and my friends) have finally found the problem with FF 112: a broken profile. We deleted all related things with “firefox” using Everything by VoidTools and after “really” a clean install now it’s working fine again. Sorry for my high number of comments about 112 however it pissed me off a lot.
@John G. I’m happy for you, I know what it feels like… before and after :=)
As far as I know there no explicit nor implicit rule about one’s number of comments. First, it always relieves to express feelings and secondly there’s a possibility that someone finds the solution; you and friends found it, ‘s marvelous as Shirley Bassey would sing it!
Off we go with FF112, all on board!
I’ve spent the night trying to resolve another issue so i’m just discovering the your story and its happy end.
@Tom Hawack, thank you very much for your words! :]
Something is very wrong again with Firefox 112.0.1 and its default (standard) protection. If enabled there are some sites that don’t work at all (e.g. the Spanish ABC newspaper, it only loads at 40%, the rest of the news are all blank spaces). I am going to curse the new cookie features!
After being unable to disable the total cookie protection I have uninstalled Firefox 112.0.1 definitely. One thing is having privacy and other thing is making unusable mostly all websites. Ads are necessary in some websites just to see some discounts or promotions or whatever other kind of business that are legal stuff from the own site. For example airflight compsnies, train tickets, supermarkets and so forth. Oh come on Mozilla guys, you can’t give us the amount of privacy without a way to disable it. Yesterday I spend too much time just to click the shield button of the adress bar just to see the offers of my local supermarket!! :((((
And also mostly all ads and branded content at Ghacks are blocked too!
Still awaiting Mozilla fixing the major memory leak causing Firefox eating up memory even while left unattended over night, the only “fix” is to kill the process and restart it.
This problem have been with Firefox since many many years and is not OS or HW specific, everything from Windows XP on old AMD Athlon from some 15 years ago to more present Linux running on Intel multicore CPU, same sh!t, and mind you this is not related to extensions as all developers had to rewrite the code when Firefox switched several years ago to the current extension system, also many extensions have also gone through tons of revisions and updates.
Just use Firemin 9.
I am aware of Firemin since long, but unfortunately there’s no Linux version, or is there anything similar for Linux?
Almost two months and nobody noticed.
The bug has been fixed in seven days.
Just upgraded Firefox from 112.0 to 112.0.1
I had noticed no cookie issue with FF112.0, at least among my ‘Allowed’ cookies; no idea about the session cookies though I hadn’t encountered any log-in issue.
Side-note and by the way : when do we refer to “update” and when do we to “upgrade”?
I manually install Firefox updates/upgrades and the install process asks me to check ‘Upgrade” though I always thought that “update” should apply in such a scenario …
@Tom, about your comment about update/upgrade process, I wonder if the culprit of the Youtube issues with 112 was some kind of bad harmful update or whatever related with updating, and not for the cookies as well. Anyway, I don’t care anymore, now it works fine with 112.0.1 so it’s enough for me.
@John G. I couldn’t say, I don’t access YouTube directly but only via a ‘Piped’ instance [https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped], be it for videos (embedded included), playlists and channels. I had faced too many YouTube pages lags in the past to not consider an alternative which I found with ‘Invidious’ first then with ‘Piped’; I use both but all my YouTube redirects head to ‘Piped’ given that in my experience it surpasses ‘Invidious’.
@Tom, it’s very interesting the “piped” solution, thanks for letting me know about it!
Agreed!
Are FF’s window size and position stored in cookies? FF still won’t remember them or site preferences on my laptop. Funny, all was well with FF 111. Why would a simple update screw with something like that?
@bewildered, about site preferences not being remembered, FYI only, though given all was fine with FF111 I doubt hereafter will be of any help.
Check about:preferences#privacy / History :
If ‘Clear History when Firefox closes’ IS checked then open ‘Settings’ : in ‘Data’ : UNCHECK ‘Site Settings’
Also, as @Bob pointed out, if your ‘privacy.resistFingerprinting’ is set to ‘true’ try setting it to ‘false’.
But again, if you haven’t changed any prefs from FF111 to FF112 I doubt all this will help …
I suspect privacy.resistFingerprinting. You should read about the privacy benefits before disabling it.
@bewildered, FF’s window size and position are stored in the xulstore.json file which is located in the user’s Firefox profile.
I have tested FF 112.0.1 some minutes ago in Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS and the Youtube related issues seem to be solved like magic. I tell you all that something was wrong inside v112! However I won’t ever say that the problem could be related with the cookies, what a surprise. Thanks for the article.