Cookie clearing exceptions don't work after Arkenfox 102

🟥 https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/5.2-Troubleshooting

• I have read the troubleshooting guide, done the checks and confirmed this is caused by arkenfox
  • unchecked issues may will be closed as invalid

🟪 REQUIRED INFO

• Browser version & OS: Firefox 102 on NixOS Unstable
• Steps to Reproduce (STR):
  • Go to GitHub
  • Allow it to save cookies via the Ctrl+I menu
  • Log in
  • Restart Firefox
• Expected result: You are still logged in
• Actual result: You are no longer logged in
• Console errors and warnings: none
• Anything else you deem worth mentioning:

My overrides

// CONVINIENCE
// -----------------------------------------------
// Enable urlbar searching
user_pref("keyword.enabled", true); 
user_pref("browser.search.suggest.enabled", true);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.suggest.searches", true);
// Enable session restore
user_pref("browser.startup.page", 3);
// Remember the file download location
user_pref("browser.download.useDownloadDir", true);
// Don't clear history
user_pref("privacy.clearOnShutdown.history", false);
user_pref("privacy.cpd.history", false);
// Enable DRM
user_pref("media.eme.enabled", true);

// REMOVE USELESS FEATURES
// -----------------------------------------------
// Disable search engine suggestions in the urlbar
user_pref("browser.urlbar.suggest.engines", false);
// Disable container tabs
user_pref("privacy.userContext.enabled", false);
user_pref("privacy.userContext.ui.enabled", false);
// Don't save passwords
user_pref("signon.rememberSignons", false);

---

This worked as intended until the last version, but since v102 it no longer works.

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

This is #1507 - basically changes are

• network.cookie.lifetimePolicy = 2
• privacy.clearOnShutdown.cookies + privacy.clearOnShutdown.offlineApps = false

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

The reason it didn’t occur until 102 for AF users, is that we used the lifetimePolicy pref instead of clearing all cookies + offlineApps data on close. 102 then had a migration to reset lifetimePolicy etc, effectively making it useless, and we had to change. They have now backed that out in FF/ESR102.01

There are two issues going on here. One is the sanitize onStartup fallback (when sanitize onShutdown fails) doesn’t respect exceptions, this is fixed in 103. This means when Firefox doesn’t exit gracefully, e.g. exiting the app with the OS shutdown, or crashing, then everything gets wiped.

The second issue is this is still happening for users who do (presumably) exit gracefully - i.e not crashing, and are exiting nicely with processes etc. Something is either failing to respect exceptions onShutdown, or it is triggering a sanitize on startup.

In 103, we HAVE to move to using onShutdown (and ignoring lifetimePolicy) because that migration code is there in 103+, and all we would be doing is triggering the migration code every time we start the browser. I DO NOT KNOW if the issue will persist in 103 - it depends on the cause: some permission thing, some race condition, something else, IDFK.

But for 102, and since this is also used for ESR users, I am putting out a dot release to revert the behavior.