Cookies disappear after a few clicks

[abigcol]

XP SP2 IE6

Cookies on my PC aren't being kept for more than a few clicks. Example
is - I use shopping basket sites, add a few things to my basket, all
works well, and then after a few clicks around the site my basket is
empty. I sign into a forum, view a few pages, then get thrown out. I
log into a website with the "remember me" tags selected and it doesn't.

Secruity is on Low and Accept All Cookies.

I checked the contents of the Cookie folder and cookies are created,
but they then disappear. When I open the folder with no IE versions
open, I only see a .dat file and (e-mail address removed) or something.

So I've run Ad-aware, Spybot, Windows Antispyware thing and nothing
found.

This issue is not present in Firefox, and is affecting all accounts on
my PC.

I'm not a newbie and have followed the links on previous "Cookies"
posts with no resolution.

 

[Galen]

In (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

XP SP2 IE6

Cookies on my PC aren't being kept for more than a few clicks.
Example is - I use shopping basket sites, add a few things to my
basket, all works well, and then after a few clicks around the site
my basket is empty. I sign into a forum, view a few pages, then get
thrown out. I log into a website with the "remember me" tags
selected and it doesn't.

Secruity is on Low and Accept All Cookies.

I checked the contents of the Cookie folder and cookies are created,
but they then disappear. When I open the folder with no IE versions
open, I only see a .dat file and (e-mail address removed) or something.

So I've run Ad-aware, Spybot, Windows Antispyware thing and nothing
found.

This issue is not present in Firefox, and is affecting all accounts on
my PC.

I'm not a newbie and have followed the links on previous "Cookies"
posts with no resolution.

I'd guess that you have software enabled, some security software like Norton
or what not, that's eating your cookies. Swat it. Let it or IE manage the
cookies but not both. I'd recommend IE as (and this will sound strange I
suppose) it seems only logical that the IE dev team is more versed in IE's
method of handling cookies than a third party vendor no matter how many SDKs
they've read or vulnerabilities found.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[abigcol]

In (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:


I'd guess that you have software enabled, some security software like Norton
or what not, that's eating your cookies. Swat it. Let it or IE manage the
cookies but not both. I'd recommend IE as (and this will sound strange I
suppose) it seems only logical that the IE dev team is more versed in IE's
method of handling cookies than a third party vendor no matter how many SDKs
they've read or vulnerabilities found.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

Galen,

I have no security products of this nature installed. AFAIK IE does
handle cookies on my computer.

 

[Galen]

In (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Galen,

I have no security products of this nature installed. AFAIK IE does
handle cookies on my computer.

Create another account, log into it, and see if the problem exists in there.
It could be that you have a corrupted profile and that the easiest method to
repair this is simply to migrate to a new account which is a fairly
easy/painless process.

Corrupt Profile:
http://kgiii.info/windows/XP/general/corrupt_profile.html

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[abigcol]

I created a new account called "test", logged in and experienced
identical problems using IE6.

 

[Galen]

In (e-mail address removed) <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I created a new account called "test", logged in and experienced
identical problems using IE6.

Unless you're infected with malware the only reason I can think of that this
would continue happening would be due to some sort of security software
running in the background. You could try (and I'm not sure that this is a
very wise course of action but I lack any other solutions at the moment)
hoping for the best and booting into safe mode with networking and seeing if
the problems exist still. If they do then I'm out of options other than a
repair installation? If they don't then we at least know it's software
that's configured. However when you start in safe mode with networking then
you run the risks of using your operating system without any protection at
all while you intentionally connect to the internet. I personally would
recommend leaving this testing to known sites only, no messenger clients or
the likes, and to a very short time span of just a half dozen minutes or so.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[abigcol]

Safe Mode is not an option for me as I cannot connect to the internet
using any variation on Safe Mode.

I will try a repair.

 

[abigcol]

I'm trying to do a repair - however there is no way of doing looking
via the Microsoft website.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q318378 (to
save you quoting) takes up to a link for IE on XP SP2 for installing
SP2. Nothing about IE6 repairs there.

Looking around the net, a fix was to use this command:

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132
%windir%\inf\ie.inf

whilst having the install CD in. This didn't fix the problem either.

I will try downloading the 266MB (!) SP2 file from the MS site and see
if I can force a repair/reinstall.

 

[abigcol]

I downloaded the file, it got half through before telling me the file
was corrupt. Short of a full windows reinstall I can't see a solution
to this, so I guess it's Firefox or nowt!

 

[neil davis]

Is this limited to php only sites? Is it still an issue?

I'd love to know what you did to fix it.

 

[neil davis]

This is happening to a lot of users on our site, who also report issues
with other sites such as ebay and yahoo. Any status on this?

What seems to be happening is that IE6 XP SP2 does not always send the
cookie in the request header. It accepts the cookie, but just doesn't hold
on to it very long.

Site is https, cookie is marked secure, expiry is set to 0, valid P3P
headers being sent:
P3P: CP="ALL DSP COR CURa ADMa DEVa TAIa PSAa PSDa CONo TELa OUR STP BUS
IND P HY ONL UNI FIN COM NAV DEM CNT PRE GOV OTC CONa SAMa"

Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=704fada36e57f010ad504ed324e91d5d; expires=Tue, 28-Mar-06 16:02:01 GMT; path=/


Issue occurs randomly. The same user will fill out
form with no issues, but sometimes, if they wait 3 minutes, then submit
form, cookie is not sent with POST request, application sees they have no
cookie, and assigns them a new session cookie, which of course gives them
a blank session, requiring them to start over.

This occurs with no other browsers, but IE6 running on XP SP2. Firefox,
mozilla, opera IE6, running on XP SP1 and every other browser works fine.