Ubuntu
firefox-3.0 package

Firefox Fails to Navigate Correctly with "Session Cookie Error"

Asked by Ceridwen

Binary package hint: firefox

Fair warning, this is a weird bug and it could be coming from any number of things.

My university's library's website has a proxy set-up to pass a personal login to many databases that it has an institutional subscriptions to. ( See, for example, http://journalfinder.wtcox.com/uncg/list-e.asp?t=28808&ucrit=the+plant+journal&x=0&y=0 ) For most databases this works fine, but for Wiley's Interscience database, it fails with the following error:

"Session Cookie Error

An error has occurred because we were unable to send a cookie to your web browser.

Session cookies are commonly used to facilitate improved site navigation. In order to use Wiley InterScience you must have your browser set to accept cookies.

Once you have logged in to Wiley InterScience, our Web server uses a temporary cookie to help us manage your visit. This Session Cookie is deleted when you logoff Wiley InterScience, or when you quit your browser. The cookie allows us to quickly determine your access control rights and your personal preferences during your online session. The Session Cookie is set out of necessity and not out of convenience."

I talked with the library's IT department and they said they couldn't find any problems on their end; they also tested it on Windows and Mac OS X, and did not see it there. I tested in an old version of Galeon (2.0.6-2.1) and Epiphany (0.7.0-2) and found that it worked there, too. I checked my Firefox configuration, I'm allowing all cookies and I'm not blocking cookies on either website. (The error may be misleading.) So it looks like it's a problem with, fairly specifically, Firefox. I am using the add-ons AdBlock, FlashBlock (though I don't have Flash installed, so Epiphany and Galeon didn't have access to it, and as far as I can tell Wiley's website doesn't use Flash), Session Manager, Tabs Open Relative, Ubuntu Firefox Modifications, and Zotero. It may be a problem with Firefox upstream, but I can't tell that.

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 and Firefox 3.0.13+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.9.04.1.

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This question was originally filed as bug #413254.

Revision history for this message
Micah Gersten (micahg) said : 		#1

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. Sometimes Firefox profiles can become corrupt. Could you please try this with a new profile and see if the problem still exists? You do not need to delete your old profile to test.
firefox -ProfileManager

Revision history for this message
Ceridwen (ceridwen) said : 		#2

Ok, I tried creating a new profile, and yes, it sort-of fixed the problem, in a way that might give more insight into what's going on.

So, I started Firefox with fire -Profile-Manger, created a new blank profile, and navigated to the page again. When I went to the https: link leading to the Wiley Interscience database, http://journalfinder.wtcox.com/uncg/logacce.asp?v=119&j=28808&u=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary%2Euncg%2Eedu%2Fdbs%2Fauth%2Fgoej%2Easp%3FejURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Einterscience%2Ewiley%2Ecom%2Fjpages%2F0960%2D7412 , I got an error indicating that Firefox "could not verify this certificate for unknown reasons." It's a Verisign certificate, but doesn't appear to be in the defaults included with Firefox. I am, frankly, out of my depth here in knowing how to point you to the certificate, but if you tell me how, I can probably find it. For the purpose of testing I established two exceptions and after doing that, got through to the destination page, The Plant Journal on Wiley InterScience. Perhaps on my original profile something else bad is happening with certificates and that's why I'm getting the error?

Revision history for this message
chris.t (chris-t) said : 		#3

how to revert to version 8.04lts after upgrading to version 8.10

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John Vivirito (gnomefreak) said : 		#4

There is no stable way or even a way that anyone can give that will work going from 8.10 -> 8.04 there is no safe way of doing than and you are likely to break more than you will fix.
As for the issue itself i am unable to reproduce the cert. issue although i am unable to sign in so if you get it only on signing in than it is going to be hard to reproduce this if no one else has a account.
I am using Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 final release and latest firefox versions:
3.6.3+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
On my other Lucid box using the PPA versions i was also unable to reproduce this without signing in:
3.6.5~hg20100427r34136+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~umd1
3.7~a5~hg20100427r41436+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~umd1

My suggestion instead of trying to revert to an earlier version try to upgrade to the latest LTS To have the best chance i would say either start with new Install of 10.04 if you think that you will have this roblem with using same system set up

Revision history for this message
Ceridwen (ceridwen) said : 		#5

chris.t's question has nothing to do with the original issue I posted here (which is still unresolved, incidentally). This is not a question, it's a Firefox bug, a misconfiguration of my university's proxy server, or some combination of the two. Unfortunately, it's not replicable without signing in: the error occurs after sign-in, when Wiley rejects the authentication for some reason. chris.t's unrelated question should be split off somewhere else.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#6

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.