Question

Internet Explorer 8 not storing cookies properly

Asked by: snix123

I have a site with a login screen written in Coldfusion 7 MX.  The login screen collects username and password in a form.  Then it looks up the informaiton in the database. If found, the person is logged in.  The username and password cookies are created and stored.  Pretty standard stuff.  

I recently upgraded to IE8 and now when I enter my username and password, the site finds the information correctly and sets the cookie.  Then control is transferred to the member only section of the site.  I use the CFLOCATION tag to transfer control.  Prior to this version of Coldfusion, one could not set a cookie on the same page where one might use the CFLOCATION tag.  The cookie value would not be preserved.  I have been running with Coldfusion MX for years and now this problem seems to have returned.  It is o.k. on IE7 and Firefox.  I tried to just write a javascript snippet with location.href="...", but nothing works.  After I login, it's as if I didn't login.  

I've deleted all the cookies vie IE8 and IE8 is set to Accept all cookies and the override auto cookie handling box is checked along with the accept session cookie box.

Any ideas?

Thanks, experts!!

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Asked On
2009-09-11 at 10:09:39ID24725231
Tags

IE8

,

Internet Explorer 8

,

cookie

,

ColdFusion

Topics

ColdFusion Application Server

,

Internet Explorer Web Browser

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
13

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Answers

 

by: kyodaiPosted on 2009-09-11 at 11:39:06ID: 25312271

Generally talking IE8 is storing cookies properly, it works with tenthousands of sites, including all common forum software and so on. So chances are the cookie is in some way formed a bit different than other common cookies. i would try to locate the cookie in IE8's Cache and analyze it, comparing it with other working cookies might give a clue what's wrong.

 

by: jcimarronPosted on 2009-09-11 at 12:09:27ID: 25312552

snix123--I see lots of bugs in IE8 and while I have not seen this one, you may have uninstall IE8 if no one else comes up with a solution.

 

by: snix123Posted on 2009-09-11 at 13:07:26ID: 25313079

Thank you for the input.  IE8 stores cookies fine with other sites I use.  In fact is seems to store the cookies o.k. on the same site, but in a different area!   I'll keep working on it.  A customer called last week with a problem just like mine and so I was trying to recreate the problem so I could solve it.  Thought it might have something to do the cflocation in coldfusion.  

will post anything I come up with.

I will say this:  I am having difficulties expiring the same cookie.  <CFCOOKIE EXPIRES="NOW"...> doesn't seem to do it...

 

by: jcimarronPosted on 2009-09-11 at 14:45:19ID: 25313694

snix123--Where are the errant cookies stored?  Usually Cookies are stored in Cookies, but management of Cookies is effected in Temporary Internet Files where mirrors of the cookies are kept.
IE8 has several new features which might affect cookies.  See
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/readiness/new-features.aspx
The "Delete Browsing History" section might be pertinent.  Also the InPrivate setting.

 

by: SidFishesPosted on 2009-09-12 at 07:19:42ID: 25316585

99.9% sure it's a cf issue

older versions of cf could not use cfcookie & cflocation on the same page...I believe that was fixed in 7 but it also may still be an issue depending on how your code is written

in place of cflocation you try using

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://yersite.com/page">

and see if that helps

 

by: snix123Posted on 2009-09-12 at 07:54:11ID: 25316699

jcimarron: That put me on the right track.  I went to Internet Options earlier and had deleted all temporary files and cookie, or so I thought.  When I looked this morning, I clicked Settings under Browsing History and then View Files.  Ordering by filetype, there were a ton of cookies!  I tried to delete cookies again along with temporary files, but I still saw the cookies there.  Looked down the list and found a cookie from the site I'm working on and manually deleted just that one.  Tried again, and no luck. Did the same thing again and manually deleted the cookie.  (More than one in there?)  Anyway, if finally worked and I was able to log in to my site with no problem.  My question now is why when you say 'delete cookies' and 'delete temporary files' ie8 appears NOT to do that?  I need to do more research.

I am going to try this on my pc downstairs which runs ie8, too.  

Also, I've noticed that IE8 runs slow.  When I use Firefox, my pages just zip by.  IE8 seems to spin for a good 10-20 seconds at least before the page loads.  Ah, well, what else do we live for, right? :-)

Will enter new input when I have something new to report.  Thanks for all the help.

 

by: jcimarronPosted on 2009-09-12 at 09:22:12ID: 25316966

snix123--Glad to hear of the progress.  What remains?
"My question now is why when you say 'delete cookies' and 'delete temporary files' ie8 appears NOT to do that?"
Was that a question for me?
IE offers several places to delete various files associated with surfing.  See the "Delete Browsing History" section in the link I provided in my last post.  As you can see you can delete only Temporary Internet Files (but now you can believe it) not Cookies.  Or only Cookies and not the rest of TIF.  Also when you first click IE Tools, there is an option on the drop down menu to "Delete Browsing History".  I think that means everything in TIF including Cookies.  Remember the Cookies in TIF are only mirror images of the real Cookies in the hidden folder Cookies.  
IE8 running slow?   Possibly this is the reason.  http://windowsfixup.com/2009/03/speeding-up-internet-explorer-8/

P.S.  This is probably overkill.  We have not even considered the hidden alphanumeric subfolders in TIF called Content.IE5 which contain a list of all the sites visited in index.dat files.  These .dat files are NOT eliminated when you "Delete Browsing History" by any method within IE.
If you want to clear the index.dat files you have to use third party apps like CCleaner or System Security Suite.  

 

by: snix123Posted on 2009-09-14 at 08:04:36ID: 25326187

I did try this on my downstairs PC which also runs IE8 and was able to reproduce it.  I attempted to login to my website and was denied access.  I then deleted all cookies and temporary files, etc., and that did seem to work, BUT still no joy and could not login.  My cookie program showed cookies still stored!  Finally, I ran this:
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org" value=""  expires="NOW" name="username" >
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org"  value=""  expires="NOW" name="password" >
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org" value=""  expires="NOW" name="remember" >
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org" value="" expires="NOW" name="affiliate">

This worked finally and I was able to log in.  I am not sure where to go from here.  If there is a problem with my CF code, then I need to find out what it is.  I am using cflocation to redirct after the login is correct.

 

by: jcimarronPosted on 2009-09-14 at 12:51:39ID: 25328670

snix123--Regrets.  I cannot help with the CF code problem.  I hope someone else will chime in.

 

by: SidFishesPosted on 2009-09-15 at 09:28:22ID: 25336647

did you try the meta refresh after login instead of cflocation?

 

by: snix123Posted on 2009-09-16 at 09:03:53ID: 25347112

SidFishes: I tried the meta login and that did not work, although I was able to eventually log in when I cleared the cookies using:
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org" value=""  expires="NOW" name="username" >
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org"  value=""  expires="NOW" name="password" >
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org" value=""  expires="NOW" name="remember" >
<cfcookie domain="mydomain.org" value="" expires="NOW" name="affiliate">

Anyway, now I cannot log in to Yahoo or Washingtonpost.com with my username and password for each.  Says that cookies are not enabled for the browser.  I set the Intrnet Zone to Medium, I click Privacy tab, Advanced, All cookies excepted, override box checked, Always accept session cookies checked.  Still cannot log in.  

I went to Washingtonpost.com and clicked on Help. It directs to do this:
Internet Explorer (Windows)
1. Close your browser and reopen it (this will clear information from the browser memory)
2. On the 'Tools' menu, click 'Internet Options', and then click the 'General' tab (this is usually already selected).
3. In the 'Temporary Internet Files' section, click 'Settings'.
4. Click the 'View Files...' button.
5. In the list of temporary Internet files that opens up please delete all the files with "washingtonpost" in their name (many versions of Windows have a search feature in the top bar of this window to help locate files).
6. Once you have deleted those files with 'washingtonpost' in their name you can close the window then select 'OK' on the 'Settings' window and 'OK' on the 'Internet Options' window.
7. You should now be able to register or sign in (using "Already Registered")

I will have to try this.  I need to close out the browser  now.  

Thanks for all the help.

 

by: snix123Posted on 2009-09-16 at 11:58:29ID: 25348860

More on this: the above I tried in my last post did not work.  I then scoured the Microsoft site to try to find a solution.  I have found one for the washingtonpost.com and yahoo.com problems I described.  (Not sure if this will solve my original problem, though.)  Found on Microsoft Answers: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/InternetExplorer/thread/c55fc594-2de4-42fc-94e0-01a40869769b
It's View, Website Privacy Policy.  Then you get a list of sites for that url and whether cookies are "Accepted" or "Blocked". You double-click on the blocked ones and enable them individually.  That solved the problem with Yahoo and Washingtonpost.com.  

 

by: snix123Posted on 2009-09-21 at 09:23:08ID: 31627661

Thanks to everyone for the great responses.  Turns ot it's a View-->Web Page  Privacy Policy thing...

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