Gmail jilts Firefox and the Irresistible Allure of Problem Solving

A suitable alternate title: Puzzled, annoyed and finally exasperated: Cache and Cookie woes

Yesterday morning, I tried to log into my Gmail account and failed to do so. I got the following error message from Gmail:

"We're sorry. It seems there is a problem. Please try using Gmail with a supported browser. If you're encountering this error while using a supported browser, we suggest alerting your Internet Service Provider (ISP) that a proxy is failing to accept cookies on HTTP redirects."

It seemed as though the browser had been "corrupted" and Gmail was having none of it. I followed the Gmail directions to resolve the problem: I had to clear the cookies and cache from the browser. On the Mac, one goes to menu bar clicks on the following sequence: Firefox --> Preferences --> Privacy --> Clear now. It also recommended that I go to Tools --> Clear Private Data. A dialog box pops up where one can check things off to be cleared and then clear them. I did both of these things via the Preferences and Tools. I then quit the application, re-opened it and tried Gmail again and ended up with the same error. It seemed as though the cookies and cache were not being cleared and therefore Gmail was refusing to accept my request to access email. I did it all over again. Still no success. I then ended up turning off the dialog box in tools and no longer could choose what needed to be cleared from there. I did not know how to turn the dialog box back on.

So, I had three problems: 1) How do I turn the dialog box back on. 2) How do I successfully clear cookies and cache. 3) How do I get Firefox to let me get my Gmail.

I found it maddening for a few reasons. The principle one being that I felt the solution was probably simple but it remained elusive to me in particular. I could get my e-mail via Safari so technically I did not need to resolve the problem. But the problem was there and I simply could not ignore it: I needed to resolve it out of pure pride and stubbornness.

Although I followed the help offered by Gmail, nothing worked. I did suspect that I should uninstall Firefox and re-install it if I wished to return to the non-corrupt version. Yet I decided to call the tech support I had signed up for a few weeks ago and see if they could help. The tech support gave it a real go but it escaped them as well. After awhile, tech support simply declared that I should just use a different browser, that Firefox was incompatible with Macs. I protested since knew this was not the case. In the end they confirmed my intuition: re-install it and see what happens.

I went to Safari to download a new version of Firefox. Even though I had gotten rid of the old version and installed the new one, I was puzzled that the "new" one, while a bit jazzier, had all of the bookmarks and such from the previous version. So I suspected that perhaps cookies and cache lingered as well. And sure enough I still could not get to Gmail.

I installed new versions of Firefox repeatedly. In an effort to erase all Firefox memory stashed on my computer, I finally decided to find every single Firefox file on my hard drive and manually trash each file. I then did a re-install. And.........it still doesn't work. I can go through multiple pages to get to the "secure" site and only then does Gmail work. This is an annoyance and unless I can fix it, I have no intention of repeatedly going down this rabbit hole to get email through the Firefox browser.

In the end there was one final explanation possible provided by Gmail help: "If you're still having problems with your account you may be facing a known issue. You should be able to use the older version of Gmail or through the basic HTML view while we work to resolve the issue." In the end, this is perhaps a non-resolvable issue on the client-end. It may be an issue the Gmail giant needs to resolve.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

I am embarrassed to admit how many hours I spent on this problem. Aside from hours on the phone with tech support, hours of my own initiatives, I also spent time reading about cookies/cache and trying to figure out the possible source of the problem. Valuable hours I could have been using getting other pressing school work done. Ah... the irresistible allure to problem solving...

Your most exasperated classmate,
Laura of cookies and cache woes