Persistent (Unremoveable?) Cookies

[zapatero]

Immediately after running CCleaner, a check of Options => Cookies shows half a dozen cookies in the left panel, "Cookies to Delete". Have these not been removed, or have they been removed and then regenerated themselves?

 

Can someone please explain, and can they be removed, really?

 

Thank you very much,

~~zapatero

[kroozer]

. . . can they be removed, really?

 

If you see the Flash logo down below when you click on them, they are Flash cookies. Right-click Adobe Flash Player and clean.

http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/ccleaner-settings/cleaning-flash-cookies

[zapatero]

Thank you for your reply, kroozer.

 

I just now checked. But, there is no Flash logo, and Adobe Flash Player is already checked.

There is apparently something else at play here.

 

Any more thoughts?

 

Thank you,

~~z

[hazelnut]

What logo is showing for the cookies?

 

Are you able to show a screenshot of what the cookies are or perhaps just list them here?

 

What is your operating system?

[zapatero]

Thank you for your reply, hazelnut.

 

As far as I can see, there is no logo. I am attaching a screenshot. I am running XP.

 

A clue is starting to emerge: I have Opera running with several windows open at the time I run CCleaner. (I am not accessing new windows, they have already finished loading.) However some of those persistent cookies are consistent with some of Opera's open windows. Can/should that be? If so, then it would appear that webpages have "re-seed" cookies that run all the time. No wonder my machine is slowing down! What do you think?

 

But, OTOH, some of those cookies I don't recognize at all...(?) How do they get there?

 

Thank you,

~~z

[hazelnut]

In order to see the logo you have to highlight a cookie in the list first.

 

Also it is best practice to close all open browser windows before using ccleaner.

[DennisD]

Have a look in ...

 

"C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Opera\Opera\pstorage\"

 

I accessed one of the sites in your list, "superuser.com", and their cookie was deposited to the above location.

 

I had a CCleaner "Inclusion" set for this location and although it is cleaned now, it wasn't quite some time ago when I set it up. Which makes me wonder that there may be something different about your set up of Opera, your CCleaner version, or something else which is causing CCleaner to miss that location.

 

If you find numerically named folders in the "pstorage" folder you'll probably find your errant cookies.

 

There may also be a similar location here ...

 

"C:\Documents and Settings\ <username> \Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\pstorage"

 

"Local Settings" is a hidden folder by the way.

 

Let us know what you find, and if there's anything different that your aware of with your Opera set up or CCleaner version.

 

Latest version here.

 

[zapatero]

Thank you for your reply, Dennis,

 

I think that I may be getting in over my head here, but this is what I found:

 

1) There is no "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Opera\Opera\pstorage\"

2) There is a "C:\Documents and Settings\ <username> \Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\pstorage"

 

I am including a screenshot so that you can see the latter and its contents. As you can see, there is one subfolder (00), and 6 sub-subfolders, (0E,0F,01,1B,1C,14). Each of these contains a 1KB file with 8 zeroes; and 01 also contains a 1KB file with 00000001.

 

As far as I am aware, there is nothing different with my Opera or CCleaner; I haven't done anything to either of them.

 

Thank you for your help,

~~z

[zapatero]

In order to see the logo you have to highlight a cookie in the list first.

 

Also it is best practice to close all open browser windows before using ccleaner.

 

Thank you for your reply, hazelnut.

 

I just ran CCleaner with Opera and I.E. closed, and still get that same list of cookies afterwards. Then, when I run CCleaner "analyze", it shows nothing to be cleaned.

 

Per your direction, I highlighted each of the cookies and all of them but one showed the Opera logo. That one exception, "effectivemeasure.net", is an Adobe Flash cookie.

 

Does this help?

 

Thank you very much,

~~z

[DennisD]

But, OTOH, some of those cookies I don't recognize at all...(?) How do they get there?

 

Is Opera configured to accept all cookies, or only from the site you visit? ...

 

 

But even if set like above, you can still get strange cookies appearing from content on a web page, and obviously if you access any links.

 

I think that I may be getting in over my head here ...

 

Don't worry about it, we can get in over our heads every day on here. We sometimes go where other folk fear to tread.

 

Just for clarity, which version of Opera are you using, as I assume your CCleaner is the latest version. I ask because there is a difference between some file and folder locations in your screenshot to where they are on my XP machine.

 

Secondly, can you find any "psindex.dat" files living in the folders you list in item #2, post #8 above.

 

CCleaner is flagging the contents of these files as cookies as shown here ...

 

 

Deleting the two "00000000" named 1kb files contained in two sub folders residing in the "00" folder shown in that pic doesn't remove the two cookies from CCleaners display, but deleting the "psindex.dat" file does.

 

It may be that some or all of your errant cookies are being deposited in the "pstorage" folder in your %localappdata% Opera folder when mine are being deposited in my %appdata% Opera folder.

 

I'm using Opera 11.64, and file/folder locations can sometimes change with different versions.

 

But, just to complicate things, only two of the cookies I picked up from accessing half a dozen of the sites you listed were deposited in my "%appdata%\Opera\Opera\pstorage" folder, but CCleaner deleted them and the others.

 

If we can simply confirm where your "psindex.dat" files are, it's a start.

 

I'm wondering if other Opera users here have "psindex.dat" files in your location or mine?

[hazelnut]

Mine is at c\docs and settings\Me\appdata\Opera\Opera\psindex.dat and is clean of cookies etc.

[zapatero]

Thank you for your sleuthing and patience, Dennis.

 

I'll try to answer your questions in the same order:

 

My Opera is configured to "accept cookies only from the sites that I visit."

 

My version of Opera is 12.02

My version of CCleaner is 3.22.1800

 

Yes, indeed there is a psindex.dat file in "C:\Documents and Settings\ <username> \Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\pstorage" And it is loaded! I am attaching it for your inspection. I see many of those persistent cookies referenced in there. (Maybe they are ALL in there -- I didn't scrub them closely.)

 

*As an aside, I did a Windows Explorer search on Documents&Settings to locate psindex.dat, and it couldn't find it...(!!??)

 

**Note that the psindex.dat file that I am attaching is from Opera while it is running. I couldn't close it first because I am writing this post in Opera...

 

Thank you again for your assistance.

 

***Well, I just received a message in pink color saying "Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file" Sorry. Please tell me what you would like me to do next

[hazelnut]

zip it up and attach for Dennis to look at.

 

Also do you have your system set up to show hidden files and folders?

[DennisD]

Well, you could upload it and I'd be happy to look at, but I'm not sure if I could offer you better advise after doing that.

 

What I would suggest, is to copy that "pstorage" folder to another location, as a back up, and just simply delete the original. Then launch CCleaner and see if some or all of those cookies have gone.

 

I actually have one "psindex.dat" file in my appdata location which CCleaner cannot delete, but it appears to be an empty "settings" file for something, and I have no idea what ...

 

 

What was I saying about going where others fear to tread? I've just deleted it.

 

If I find some setting changed in Opera, no big deal, but chances are it may have lain there forever and done nothing. So now both my "pstorage" folders are empty.

 

If you have any sort of issue, you can simply copy the back up folder to the original location, and then we can have a closer look at what it contains.

 

Be brave, you'll have a back up, you're not deleting any system critical stuff, so send that pstorage folder on it's way, and then we'll deal with why that location is being used instead of the %appdata% one, and how we can clean it in future.

[zapatero]

Thank you, Hazel and Dennis,

 

After considerable bumbling about I think I have, (at least temporarily(?)), fixed the problem.

 

A Google search on "pstorage" turns up a bunch of references. This one in particular: http://my.opera.com/...c.dml?id=689782, (mostly over my head), provides a lot of on-topic discussion. CCleaner is even mentioned a couple of times. Maybe you might find it interesting or even useful.

 

Anyway, out of all this I tried the following in Opera: Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Storage -> "Webpages Using Persistent Storage" -> "Clear All". Then, after closing Opera, I ran CCleaner. This time all of those cookies were gone. HOWEVER, I don't know yet if, or how soon they will reappear.

 

I will watch this for a while, and then try doing what you have done -- literally deleting the pstorage folder. But I want to do a full system backup before I attempt that. I will keep you posted.

 

If you have any thoughts on the above link, I would be interested to hear them. I just noticed that that link got compacted. Here it is without the leadin: my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=689782

 

Thank you very much,

~~z

[DennisD]

If you are happy to use Opera itself to remove the cookies it lists, then that's absolutely fine. Although, it doesn't answer the question why they are located where they are on your pc, and it would be nice if you could simply remove them with CCleaner, as others do.

 

I honestly could have sent you to this feature from the start, but it didn't to me seem like a solution, and I've been trying to ascertain as to whether the pstorage drop down menu options have any significance on cookie location for you.

 

So far, changing the menu options has changed absolutely nothing on my pc. Whatever I select, the same cookies go to the same location.

 

One thing I would suggest if you decide to use Opera to delete these cookies, have an occasional check in the folder to see if any are bypassing Opera's list of them. You never know.

 

Anyways, as mentioned in that article, there are some who may find this storage issue useful. Personally, I don't want any of this stuff on my hard drive, and so far I've meandered around the web for quite some time with Opera and nothing in either "pstorage" folders, and I don't seem to have come to any harm, or been aware of something not working which worked before.

 

Personal choice of course.

 

If you decide to bin it, let us know how you get on.

[Alan_B]

I am quite proud of my fit-and-forget solution for everlasting prevention of special files and folders.

 

If something creates a folder then I delete the folder, and create an empty file with the same name.

If something creates a file then I delete the file, and create an empty folder with the same name.

 

If my first attempt is ever defeated then I repeat, but additionally write protect my substitute entity.

If that is defeated then I start getting devious

[zapatero]

Thank you again, Dennis. I feel that I am wasting too much of your generously offered time.

 

I agree with you that it is better to let CCleaner get rid of those cookies than to rely on Opera to do so. I believe that this is now what is happening. Yesterday, when in Opera I did: Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Storage -> "Webpages Using Persistent Storage" -> "Clear All", I was just groping. But apparently, by doing so, that appears to have "enabled" CCleaner to do its job, and my original issue that started all of this has gone away. (For refreshment, that is/was, from post #1, "Immediately after running CCleaner, a check of Options => Cookies shows half a dozen cookies in the left panel, "Cookies to Delete".)

 

I have now tested it five times, sequentially opening all of those webpages in Opera, checking in CCleaner that all of those cookies have been newly ingested, closing Opera, running CCleaner, and then checking Options -> Cookies in CCleaner -- and they are all gone. And then repeat it all over again. So for me, my original issue appears to be fixed. (Not from any brilliance on my part, but by accident.)

 

Now, given this new insight, it is not clear to me whether it helps to clarify your question. Or, whether my intuition is correct that you are analyzing the problem at a deeper level than I was/am(?)

 

For me, given all the other, greater vulnerabilities that my system is subject to, I am content to let this one rest; but if you feel that it needs more examination I am willing.

 

Alan_B, you are way over my head -- I wouldn't know how to do it if I tried!

[DennisD]

If your cookies are now clearing, then I would say job done, and well done.

 

Whatever fixed it was somewhere in your actions, and I wouldn't spend too much time trying to figure out what exactly or why. We've all had computer problems arise at one time or another which seem to appear out of nowhere, and while you're racking your brain trying to figure out a cause and solution, the issue just disappears the way it came.

 

The old gremlins maybe.

 

And you're never wasting my time, or anyone else's for that matter, so feel free to call back any time.