Websites in Safari forgetting preferences

[nzh999]

Hi all,

Apologies if I've missed something obvious here, but I have an issue where I visit a website (for example https://www.bbc.co.uk/news) and find that the previously set preferences have been lost - such as the local news (set by Postcode). This issue affects multiple websites and I've given the BBC one just as an example.

Have I missed a setting in Safari somewhere to allow these settings (via cookies?) to remain enabled?

Thanks,
Neil.

 

[Boyd01]

This could happen if you are using private browsing. When you do, websites can save your settings as usual, but when you quit Safari all data that was saved on your computer is erased. If you aren't using private browsing, then maybe you have some other plug-in or setting that is preventing data from being saved? It could be a "cookie" but a more modern way to store user preferences is the Web Storage API.

 

[nzh999]

This could happen if you are using private browsing. When you do, websites can save your settings as usual, but when you quit Safari all data that was saved on your computer is erased. If you aren't using private browsing, then maybe you have some other plug-in or setting that is preventing data from being saved? It could be a "cookie" but a more modern way to store user preferences is the Web Storage API.

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. No private browsing used - just ordinary. The extensions used are: Adblock (ver 10.3) and Bitwarden.

The issue is a bit weird in that if I set my postcode on the BBC News website then it will persist for a few days (and work as expected), however after a period of time (days) the preferences will be forgotten. The same things happens on my local council website if I set my address to lookup various services they provide.

 

[Boyd01]

I don't know anything about those extensions. I have used Safari ever since the beginning and never felt the need for any extensions. You might try disabling both for awhile and see if that helps.

If you want to see what data safari is storing, go to Preferences >Advanced and check the box that says "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Now go to the new Develop Menu and choose "Show Web Inspector". Click the Storage tab at the bottom while you are on the BBC website. You can click on the items on the list to show exactly what is being stored on your Mac. For example, this is what I see for MacRumors.

 

[nzh999]

Thanks Boyd01 that's really helpful.

I had a look at the data stored by the BBC website and then compared it again after entering my postcode in the My News section. This added a cookie called Locserv (containing my postcode) that has a nice long expiry on it (1 year). I'll keep an eye to see if and how quickly that disappears and/or the preferences are lost.