Lost all cookies
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So when I turned on my PC today and started up Vivaldi I found myself logged out from all websites. Some checking around made it clear that all my cookies have disappeared.
I don't use any cookies managers or anything like that, nor did I use a cleaner type utility recently. This is the first time it happened.
Any ideas what could have caused it?
I assume there is no "backup" of cookies anywhere? (I can log back in to most sites, but there will inevitably be some lost settings, etc.)I saw some old topics about similar issues, but they involved CCleaner or cookies managers, or also included loss of saved passwords (my are still in place).
EDIT: Actually, scratch that. Some passwords appear to be gone. But not all, which is extremely strange.
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Further research: no other browsers seem affected. I'm a bit iffier on whether some passwords are actually gone, because most of them seem to be there, so I might have been mistaken about that.
Also just in case I checked with a file recovery program the location where the cookies database is, but found no remains of older copy, so it was probably emptied and not deleted.
Did virus scans with two different programs, seems clean. -
@MIC132MIC There are two ways to delete cookies that I know of.
- In the Delete Browsing Data dialog (Default shortcut = Ctrl+Shift+Del)
- In Settings, Privacy and Security, Saved Cookies, Delete All Cookies (Show saved passwords is also in the Privacy settings).
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@Pesala
I doubt I did either of that accidently..
Maybe the Ctrl+Shift+Del somehow, but that still requires confirmation, doesn't it? -
@MIC132MIC Do you have cookies set to "Session Only"?
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@Pathduck
Nope, set to "All".
And I've been using Vivaldi for good 4 years now I think? Never seen anything similar. -
@MIC132MIC Well, if it happens again... let us know
Really hard to troubleshoot something that happens once and no-one has any idea why it would happen. There needs to be a pattern for anything meaningful to come out of it.
I have run basically the same Vivaldi install for 5 years, and never had it happen to me, so no idea what it could be.
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@Pathduck
Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how it could have happened, since I'd rather not go through this again. I already unbound the Delete Browsing Data shortcut, just in case.I assume there is no way to recover those cookies? There was a lot of site settings and the like there..
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@MIC132MIC In my opinion, losing cookies is No Big Deal(tm).
Yeah you might have to sign into sites again and possibly redo some cookies-based settings (cookie-based settings are st00pid btw). But really no big loss.
But you did mention losing passwords too... which is more worrying. It really should not happen.
And you'd need to be Really fumble-fingered to be able to press
Ctrl+Shift+Del, select "for all time", select cookies+passwords (not selected by default) and press Enter. So I doubt that's what happened.Maybe some random corruption of the Cookies file.
Look, if you're interested in technicalities:
- Cookies live under
Network\Cookiesin your Vivaldi profile - Passwords live in
Login Data - They are both SQLite files
- Download DB Browser for SQLite
- Copy the files somewhere and open the copies in the tool
- See if you can find the "missing" cookies/passwords there.
Or there are some nice tools from Nirsoft that let you examine cookies/passwords directly:
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/chrome_cookies_view.html
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/chromepass.html
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/web_browser_password.html
You might have to point the tool to the correct file. - Cookies live under
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@Pathduck
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure about the passwords.
For most sites the passwords were there, but for example for one site, that I regularly log into in incognito (but for which I have a password saved normally), and where I always auto-filled the password, it didn't autofill and the site isn't in the saved passwords at all. So that's what has me confused. Since most are there.I might take a peek at the cookies file, just in case.
