448372 - Sensitive cookie data remains readable and on disk in cookies.sqlite after "Clear Private Data" and "Remove All Cookies"

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Networking: Cookies, defect, P1)

Description

[Sanjay Sodhi]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1

I'm running Firefox 3.0.1 on Windows XP.

Earlier today, I went on a privacy rampage, and cleared all of my cookies, and set Firefox to clear cookies on close and all. The cookies.sqlite file has retained a significant amount of data. I'm not sure if they're complete cookies, or what, but it remains that Firefox thinks it has one, but there are 342 stored on the filesystem.

I'm not sure why this is, or if this is intended behaviour, but I really think "Remove All Cookies" should, indeed, "Remove" them.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/4764/firefoxcookiesqt6.png

There's a comparison of the data in cookies.sqlite, and Firefox's idea of what's in there

Reproducible: Didn't try

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Firefox and observe listings in Tools->Options->Privacy->Show Cookies
2. Close Firefox
3. Open cookies.sqlite in some database software
Actual Results:  
There were a significant number of cookies in cookies.sqlite not listed in the Firefox Show Cookies window

Expected Results:  
The cookie data should not be present

"Starting in Firefox 3.0 and SeaMonkey 2.0, cookie information is stored in "cookies.sqlite" and "permissions.sqlite". "
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Cookies

I presume that means that when Firefox talks about cookies, it's talking about the cookies in cookies.sqlite. So, when it talks about removing cookies, it's talking about removing the cookies in cookies.sqlite

Comment 1

[Zander Milroy]

I tried to replicate this bug using Firefox 3.0.1 on a fresh install on Windows XP.

The cookies were removed as expected. These are before and after screenshots of the SQLite table;
Before: http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/7929/unclearedcookiesft8.png
After: http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/5046/clearedcookieswk8.png

This install is not more than a couple weeks old, although I'm unsure if it's upgraded from version 3.0 or a fresh 3.0.1. Regardless, the bug didn't occur when I attempted to reproduce it.

Comment 2

[Sanjay Sodhi]

Created a TestCase profile to explore this further

Firefox running TestCase profile with default's cookie file: fails
Firefox running TestCase profile with testcase's cookie file: passes

Firefox running Default profile with default's cookie file: fails
Firefox running Default profile with testcase's cookie file: passes

The problem seems to be in the original cookies.sqlite file.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/netwerk/cookie/src/nsCookieService.cpp#780

something's going wrong with that command - perhaps an async failure, database corruption, etc. the failure may not be propagating (via the NS_FAILED(rv) check) due to async, but it's happening.

sanjay, can you email me a "good" and "bad" sqlite file to [e-mail]? (don't attach it here, unless you have no personal information in there.) we can do some checks to see if there's any corruption going on, or somesuch.

Comment 4

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

I was helping Dan with this at the Firefox summit just now.  Turns out the bad database is in fact corrupted, which is why things aren't being removed.  Cookies needs to be doing an integrity or quick check on the database to detect this every so often (since it's running with synchronous = OFF)

Comment 5

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Attachment: v1.0

Remove the database file if the delete action fails.

Comment 6

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 333126 [details] [diff] [review]
v1.0

r=me but remove the (void)'s, it's not prevailing style and that trumps.

will be awesome to get async api love here!

Comment 7

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Attachment: v1.1

for checkin

Comment 8

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Pushed as 17099:815620b45c2f.

Comment 9

[[e-mail]]

this isn't really fixed, just slightly improved - but i'll let it slide since we have a bug on file (bug 449990) for async work.

Comment 10

[cloudsplitter_38]

not fixed in 3.6.* cookies will NOT delete at all. please fix it.

Comment 11

[cloudsplitter_38]

Attachment: firefox 3.6 cookies will NOT delete at all