[Beta 5.0] Cookies Denied = unusable (welcome message repeated, guess local storage access denied)

Dear Community,

I have seen this or similar referenced before but am unsure if this fits in there or not. here the one that sounds the most like what I experience, error discription is somehow vague though: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/66291/firefox-connector-not-functioning

So I'm using Firefox a.o. in combination with CookieMonster which defaults cookie settings to denied but allows me to whitelist domains that are allowed to set cookies. If it is activated, as reported, the Zotero Connector won't work. It always shows the welcome message. In another thread it was only the case evertime firefox was restarted because local storage was cleared at restart. My storage is cleared too as soon as I activate the plugin - which I prefer. This means the workaround of allowing cookies, starting the connector, then denying cookies again does not work either.
I know that's a bad argument but have been using both addons for years noew, would also not want to trade one in for another..however just to make it complete, accepting cookies as default in Cookiemonster does resolve the problem.

Reading into the topic revealed that the no cookie policy of fiefox got stricter at some point and denies all access to local storage. Hence it seems like whatever needed to be saved (e.g. that I have seen the welcome message) can't be saved. I am not willing to accept all cookies however. And I can imagine I'm not the only one (also seen in the other post).

Is there a way to find out where the addon needs access to to probably whitelist something? or any way around to still being able to use the connector? Or a way to save things in a different spot - or ignore it? Here a different project where putting the respective lines into try-catch blocks did the deal. Has also a way to reproduce the situation in case simply denying cookies doesn't do it for you.

https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/issues/1825

Not very clean I guess and I don't know if workable for the connector, but the only approach I found so far. Any ideas?

Here my report ID: 751474466
it basically repeats that

[JavaScript Error: "The operation is insecure." {line: 47}]

alternatively the same message with line 209

Where I'm assuming that 'operation' refers to accessing local storage.

Thanks for the great work and looking forward to the next version!
  • We are aware of this and of a way to fix it, however it's fairly involved in Zotero's case, which is why it has not been done yet.

    (We'd have to switch to chrome.storage instead of localStorage, which only provides an async API, whereas localStorage is synchronous).
  • OK thanks for the quick update!
    Sad to hear though. been searching a while now too and played around with numerous cookie settings but there doesn't seem to be a satisfying configuration that keeps privacy intact (without having to blacklist instead of whitelisting) and the zotero connector working at the same time :/ Not reading beforehand properly even tried creating some entries in localstorage manually but since even read access seems to be blocked doesn't help. whitelisting moz-extension:// with the machine-specific UUID isn't successful either.
    Guess for now then it's either back to 4 or different browser just for research.
    Please keep us updated if anything changes. Thanks :)
  • Alright so here my workaround so far, has nothing to do with zotero strictly but maybe helps.. Since we concluded that Zot5 Connector doesn't work with cookies disabled and I don't want to have them enabled for normal surfing by default I decided to (instead of using another browser) run a second FF research profile instead.

    Therefore obviously create another FF profile first (dialog will open with -p without a profile name). Then to use it it's necessary to run firefox from the terminal with -p 'profilename' -no-remote where no-remote ensures that you are not simply referred back to the running session. (For Windows just edit a shortcut, Mac use terminal or build script as Application with "do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P research -no-remote" - note here that you also need this twice, once for default and once for research profile, for more info look here: http://spf13.com/post/managing-multiple-firefox-profiles-in-os-x Linux well you know what to do for a parameter launch. )

    Then in the research profile I decided to losen the cookie policy to temporarily allow all cokies until the tab closes and blacklist some very intruding ones like analytics etc.. This enables me to use FF with the Connector.

    To keep the research and default FF instance apart one is running in dark theme, the other in light theme mode and to change the dock icon (in OSX) this Addon was helpful: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fosx-label/ - it seems to set the message counter to a string thet you can choose, might work somewhere else too.

    Still obviously an.. uncomfortable setup. Would gladly see a version that works with chrome.storage or somehow else, even if some functions might be not working. Thanks again for your work!
  • +1

    I am experiencing the same issue as I have noted in other threads.


    Dear @ebbing ,

    Thank you for posting your workaround. I am about to give it a try. In order to assist me, can you please also post your list of blacklisted cookies as I don't know what to block (hence why I block all by default and only allow those that I need).

    Cheers :)
  • This is fixed in version 5.0.13 of the Zotero Connector, now available.
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