Safari keeps logging me out of ALL sites

[ururk]

This started about a month ago - Safari logged me out of everything (GitHub, Amazon, google products, this forum, etc...), and I had to authenticate to services once, twice, multiple times a day. Rebooting Safari didn't help, but rebooting my computer did. 6 days later, the logout issue began again.

Any ideas? I tried searching through bugzilla, this forum, the Apple forum...

Safari Version 15.4 (17613.1.17.1.13)
Mac OS X 12.3.1
M1

I know, "use Chrome" - but no, I'd prefer not to.

Any ideas? My Privacy settings are unchanged from the defaults (presumably - I don't recall changing these):

John

 

[usagora]

I don't use Safari, but in Safari > Preferences > General have you checked to see what option is selected for "Remove History Items"? I would think that would only refer to your web page visiting, not site data/cookies being removed, but maybe it does both and yours is set to remove them after a short period of time? I don't see any other option in Safari preferences that seems relevant to the issue you're facing.

 

[ururk]

I don't use Safari, but in Safari > Preferences > General have you checked to see what option is selected for "Remove History Items"? I would think that would only refer to your web page visiting, not site data/cookies being removed, but maybe it does both and yours is set to remove them after a short period of time? I don't see any other option in Safari preferences that seems relevant to the issue you're facing.

Mine's set to one year, but yeah, probably wouldn't be the cause.

I have developer tools turned on - but all of those options are set to defaults.

I found a thread on the Apple forums about similar behavior... from 2009!

But in general, this is really weird.

One other - possibly related thing - I've been using Amazon Session Manager to connect to EC2 instances - Safari gets really buggy when trying to load a session, and I just started using Session Manager recently after not using it for a while. I might reboot my computer and only use Chrome to connect to instances to see if that's somehow related (a long shot). I suppose it could be an uptime thing too, though I hate to think I can only keep my system up for 6 days. I used to go 60 days or longer.

 

[ururk]

(60 days or longer with an Intel mac, though I really do love the speed/etc... of the M1 Pro)

 

[lcubed]

are you using any non apple safari extensions or third party anti-virus?
are you seeing any keychain failure messages?

 

[ururk]

are you using any non apple safari extensions or third party anti-virus?
are you seeing any keychain failure messages?

No to both. I keep my Safari as unmodified as possible. I did run an AV scan on my mac just to be safe - didn't turn up anything. I kind of doubt it's a keychain thing - feels more like a session expiring thing, except sessions shouldn't expire randomly like they are doing. If I get annoyed by it I suppose I can start snapshotting my cookies/local storage to see what's going on.

Another odd thing - seems unrelated - but when signing in to various sites, on some Safari asks if I want to update the password. I'm literally touch ID'g an existing password, and it asks if I want to update my passwords... keychain?

 

[lcubed]

No to both. I keep my Safari as unmodified as possible. I did run an AV scan on my mac just to be safe - didn't turn up anything. I kind of doubt it's a keychain thing - feels more like a session expiring thing, except sessions shouldn't expire randomly like they are doing. If I get annoyed by it I suppose I can start snapshotting my cookies/local storage to see what's going on.

Another odd thing - seems unrelated - but when signing in to various sites, on some Safari asks if I want to update the password. I'm literally touch ID'g an existing password, and it asks if I want to update my passwords... keychain?

is your IP address stable? (or is the DHCP releasing and assigning a new address periodically?)

in that vein, do you have apple private relay turned on?

i've had the update password pop up for touch ID when my user/password combo has been reported to be compromised by apple

i've also had that issue when there were keychain access issues.

i ended up remigrating my user account from my old machine without transferring some settings. apparently going from high sierra (on my old machine) to monterey (on my new machine) moved some settings related to the keychain which weren't compatible with monterey.

 

[ururk]

is your IP address stable? (or is the DHCP releasing and assigning a new address periodically?)

in that vein, do you have apple private relay turned on?

i've had the update password pop up for touch ID when my user/password combo has been reported to be compromised by apple

i've also had that issue when there were keychain access issues.

i ended up remigrating my user account from my old machine without transferring some settings. apparently going from high sierra (on my old machine) to monterey (on my new machine) moved some settings related to the keychain which weren't compatible with monterey.

IP is stable - though not likely the issue - when I VPN during the day my IP changes but I remain logged in.

Private relay is off.

You are probably right about the update password prompt - I thought it was asking to update the password in my keychain with the password it had just filled in.

When I set this machine up I started from scratch - my old machine had built up so much cruft... and this only started about one month ago - I've had the machine for 4 1/2 months now.

 

[mwickens]

I have the same issue. It started months ago and my “solution” (after trying everything else) was to switch to the Safari Technology Preview. That worked fine until few days ago when it started doing the same thing. Tearing my hair out.

 

[rmaspero]

This started happening to me when I upgraded to Safari 15.5. I found a thread on the Apple forums from around the same time as the 15.5 was released which suggested turning off Dev Tools. A couple of people had noticed when they opened it that all their logins were getting reset.

Since turning it off I haven't been logged out.

Obvs, not a full solution as a wed dev I kind of need dev tools to do my job....

 

[mwickens]

I found a thread on the Apple forums from around the same time as the 15.5 was released which suggested turning off Dev Tools.

This was absolutely my problem. Since turning off the Develop menu, it no longer occurs. Thank you!

But as you say, it makes it a bit difficult to do debugging! For now, I've resorted to using Chrome for development stuff.

 

[George Dawes]

Happened to me too , on this very website ... most odd

Turned off developer menu and it's all back to normal !!!

 

[seanrucker]

Same. Develop menu was the culprit. Thank you @rmaspero!

 

[PhilETaylor]

Absolutely 100% fixed by disabling the "Develop Menu" in Safari Preferences. Only problem is, as a developer, I now find myself having to toggle this on an almost daily basis. So annoying. I want the develop menu enabled, and I want my cookies/sessions to not be messed with Apple, please pretty please

 

[bogdanw]

Has anyone tried to enable the Debug Menu as well?
From Terminal

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu -bool YES

or from Onyx – Parameters – Applications – Safari – Turn on the Debug menu
https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

 

[PhilETaylor]

That command doesn't toggle the checkbox for me at all if I close safari, run it, and then open safari it doesn't change the state of the checkbox in either direction yes or no.

 

[bogdanw]

The Debug Menu doesn't have a checkbox in Safari. You have to give Terminal Full Disk Access to run the command successfully.

 

[PhilETaylor]

Sorry maybe we are not talking about the same thing.

The "thing" that fixes the loss of cookies and sessions is the "Show develop menu in menu bar" setting on the Advanced page of Safari.

When that checkbox is off, the cookies/sessions are never lost
When that checkbox is on, the cookies/sessions are lost within a few hours.

 

[bogdanw]

The "thing" that fixes the loss of cookies and sessions is the "Show develop menu in menu bar" setting on the Advanced page of Safari.

Yes, I understood that.
I was asking if anybody tried to enable the Debug Menu as well as the Developer Menu and what was the result.

 

[dsemf]

Sorry maybe we are not talking about the same thing.

The "thing" that fixes the loss of cookies and sessions is the "Show develop menu in menu bar" setting on the Advanced page of Safari.

When that checkbox is off, the cookies/sessions are never lost
When that checkbox is on, the cookies/sessions are lost within a few hours.

What options do you have enabled in developer menu? I have always had the developer menu active and I have not seen any issues.

DS

 

[feeledmaximus]

I confirm the problem with cookies/sessions disappearing with a Develop menu enabled.

Moreover, I have had this problem at my Intel Macbook since I bought it more than a year ago. Actually I thought I broke something... So after buying a new M1 Pro Macbook I haven't copied any settings. Instead, I set up the system from scratch (mostly because of a different architecture tho).

M1 macbook started losing cookies right after I enabled the Develop menu today. I have not changed any options in developer menu yet, was using a Console only.

There's a solution: use Safari Technology Preview. This is the browser I was using for the whole past year (solely because of missing cookies in a regular Safari). I hope to get a fix without Technology Preview.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I am also having these issues. I am running macOS Venture 13.3.1 (22E261), MacBook Pro 16" 2019. Uptime 24 days, until I install that "Rapid Security Response" later tonight.

I always have at least one tab with running web inspector/developer tools. I've not tried disabling the developer tools, because that would be unacceptable (I would instead just migrate to Firefox, somehow).

One thing I have noticed is that when I am logged out of sites (an incident), it's not all sites. It's mostly big sites: Reddit, Twitter, Google, GitHub, Wikipedia, etc. Those will always be logged out whenever an incident occurs, and the only way to know an incident occurred is when I try to load a site and I'm logged out.

Other sites seem entirely unaffected: Bing, MacRumors Forums, the internal company admin site, other stuff I'm forgetting. Has anyone else noticed if it's some or all sites you are logged out of?

What ISPs are you guys on?

 

[miagg]

I have the exact same issue. It's been bugging me for at least 3 months now.
If I make the "mistake" to turn the developer mode on, I will randomly loose cookies on most of the sites I've logged in.
It's definitely a bug since when you turn off develop mode, it won't loose any cookies.
I wish I new the exact Safari version that started this bug but I'm sure it is not Ventura related.

 

[dysamoria]

If you're clearing your browsing history, it will erase all the cookies. This is a STUPID and UNDESIRABLE action on the part of whoever decided this is what "history" means, but that's what happens on iOS, and I assume they've moved this behavior to Mac OS Safari as well. It happens to me, too, and it's maddening. These used to be, and should always be, separate processes. Clearing History on iOS, when you're iCloud synching between iPhone/iPad and Mac OS, may have similar unwanted consequences.

The ecosystem is diseased.

 

[josselinco]

Still have this issue. January 2024