Can't use cookie manager.

Using mozilla 1.7b in XP Home and open cookie manager and it's empty - both tabs. Cookies.txt, examined with notepad, is a large file and I can see lots of cookies. How can I safely manage them?

I'm not having a problem; just curious.

 

Just to make sure, do you have an empty box, under Stored Cookies? The other one should be empty, unless you put something there, yourself.

 

Hi Mike,

You're looking at the right Profile, aren't you? If you have a large cookies.txt file on the HD, then the cookies should definitely show up in the Cookie Manager. Something is wrong... Could be that your cookies.txt file is corrupt.

EDIT: First, rename the cookies.txt file to Xcookies.txt. Then open Netscape and go to a site that you know will give you a cookie, this one for instance. Exit Netscape, and then reopen, do you see the new Cookie? If you do, then you have a corrupt cookies.txt file...

Close Netscape & Quick Launch, then delete the file, and let Netscape rebuild the file on restart. Of course you will have to visit the sites where you allow cookies, to rebuild the file.

Ramona

 

Westside yes, all boxes are empty in cookie manager.

Ramona I'm totally surprised. I didn't think I had a problem.
So far as I know the only profile should be mine (the only user). I have only one cookies.txt in a search of the system disk.

Can I try to restore the file from a Ghost backup? I'm not sure how long the file's been corrupted though - the backup is only a month old.

Can Ad-aware or Spybot damage the file?
Just ran SpybotS&D and it found lots (couple dozen) of bad cookies and deleted them. Ran it again and it found just as many! Guess I better get cracking?

I'll get back to you

 

Mike,

Do a test run first and rename the cookies.txt file. Then log out of this site, to remove the cookie, exit Netscape. Restart Netscape, Log in and you will get a new cookie. Look in Cookie Mgr. and see if the Windows BBS cookie is there (www.windowsbbs.com). You may have to exit Netscape first and let it write to the file, then reopen in order to see the new cookie.

But, if you have a good backup you might try that too.

Ramona

 

Kinda rambling but hope I covered everything

Ramona,

I renamed the cookies.txt file,
logged off this site and closed mozilla.
restarted mozilla, clicked on url in mail for this thread and was not logged on automatically.
Logged on. Have a new cookies.txt, top of which looks different from old but is same size! and has some other cookies I like and need, e.g. for home page my.yahoo, to which I didn't need to log in, which I'd have to if cookies were disabled.
There's nothing in cookie manager.
Tried several times to be sure I didn't skip anything.
Exited mozilla after logging out and not logging out and restarted it, and was not logged on automatically if I logged out but was otherwise. There's still nothing in cookie manager.

I did restore cookies.txt from backup, and there's no change. The file was 28KB as compared to 25K.

Is the fact Spybot doesn't seem to eliminate the cookies significant? I just ran AVG last nite after updating the defs, and ran Ad-aware today before running spybot the first time, and they found nothing.
Edit: Spybot does eliminate cookies normally. Don't know how I got the above idea, but tested it this am an it works fine.

edit2: ran avg, ad-aware, and spybot this a.m. and then hijackthis; log looks clean. Just wanted to r.o. an infection of sorts.

I'm thinking it's a bug in v.1.7.2.

checked mozilla.org and found it to bug#144032

 

Hi sparrow,

Your bug was a false alarm if you read it all the way through. Try a new Profile for testing, and see what happens. If it works then transfer your data from the old to the new Profile.

Ramona

 

My cookie.txt file is over 30Kb, and I ran Spybot will caught over 100 cookies. I let it delete the cookies, which are stored in Spybot, and you should be able to restore. I did not have to restore anything, and I have as many cookies as ever.
I would say, follow Ramona's advice.

 

Correct. Cookies are visible in the new profile. Thanks.

Any explanation for what happened to/in old profile?

 

sparrow,

It's hard to say, but something was corrupt in the old Profile. I am glad that the new Profile gives you a working Cookie Manager.

Ramona

 

Last question, I hope

All I did was copy new profile to default directory as user.js (for those who want to do this in windows, method I used was: open new prefs.js in notepad and 'save as' to old *.slt folder as user.js). Then, after testing, I deleted the new profile using profile manager, so have only one profile again, which seems to me to work normally.

Do you have any other suggestions for next time, or for others with this "problem "?

 

Mike,

What you could have done is replaced the prefs.js file in the corrupt Profile with the newly created prefs.js file. The user.js file overrides the prefs.js file, and MHO is that you shouldn't do this. I want the program to look at the default prefs.js file, and not a user created file.

FWIW,

For next time, or for other users, I would probably make the same suggestions to begin with. In your specific case, it is obvious that the prefs.js file was corrupt.

Ramona