Cookie import via Cookie Management doesn't apply cookies correctly

[gaspe1210-lang]

What happened?

Cookie import via Cookie Management UI doesn't work correctly.
Despite showing "Successfully imported X cookies", sites like Facebook
immediately show the login page — cookies are not applied.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a Wayfern/Chromium profile
2. Launch the profile
3. Open Cookie Management → Import → load a valid JSON cookie file
4. Success message appears: "Successfully imported 680 cookies (75 replaced)"
5. Navigate to facebook.com
6. Facebook shows login page — not logged in

Operating System

macOS (Apple Silicon)

Donut Browser version

0.19.0

Which browser is affected?

Wayfern

Error logs or screenshots

No response

[github-actions]

Thanks for opening your first issue!

I understand that cookie import appears to succeed (showing the success message) but the cookies don't actually take effect when browsing.

Missing information:

1. Was the browser closed during import? The code checks if the browser is running and blocks import if so — but if you imported while the profile was launched (step 2 says "Launch the profile"), did you close the browser before importing, or was it still open? Chromium loads cookies into memory at startup and won't re-read the SQLite database while running.
2. Did you close and re-launch the profile after importing? If you imported with the browser closed, did you then launch the profile fresh before navigating to Facebook?
3. What tool/extension exported the JSON cookie file? (e.g., EditThisCookie, Cookie-Editor, etc.) A small sample of the JSON structure (with values redacted) would help confirm the format is being parsed correctly.
4. Are the cookies still valid (not expired)? Facebook cookies expire — can you confirm they were recently exported from an active session?
5. Could you share the app logs from the import attempt? On macOS: ~/Library/Logs/Donut\ Browser/ — please attach the most recent log file.

[gaspe1210-lang]

Thank you for the quick response!

Here is the exact sequence of what happened:

1. Created a new profile and launched it
2. Navigated to facebook.com (not logged in)
3. Closed the profile in Donut
4. Went to profile settings and imported cookies via JSON file
5. Success message showed: "Successfully imported 680 cookies (75 replaced)"
6. Launched the profile again and navigated to facebook.com
7. Facebook showed login page — not logged in, cookies didn't work

Then I tried a workaround WITHOUT closing the profile:

8. Left the profile running
9. Wrote cookies directly to the SQLite database using this Python script:

cat > /tmp/fix_cookies.py << 'PYEOF'
import json, sqlite3, os, time, sys
cookie_file = os.path.expanduser("~/Downloads/cookie.json")
db_path = sys.argv[1]
with open(cookie_file) as f:
cookies = json.load(f)
fb_cookies = [c for c in cookies if 'facebook.com' in c.get('domain', '')]
conn = sqlite3.connect(db_path)
cur = conn.cursor()
now = int(time.time() * 1000000)
for c in fb_cookies:
expires = int(c.get('expirationDate', 0))
chrome_expires = (expires + 11644473600) * 1000000 if expires else 0
cur.execute("DELETE FROM cookies WHERE host_key=? AND name=?", (c['domain'], c['name']))
cur.execute("""INSERT INTO cookies (creation_utc, host_key, top_frame_site_key, name, value, encrypted_value, path, expires_utc, is_secure, is_httponly, last_access_utc, has_expires, is_persistent, priority, samesite, source_scheme, source_port, last_update_utc, source_type, has_cross_site_ancestor) VALUES (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)""",
(now, c['domain'], '', c['name'], c['value'], b'', c.get('path', '/'),
chrome_expires, int(c.get('secure', False)), int(c.get('httpOnly', False)),
now, 1 if expires else 0, 1 if expires else 0,
1, -1 if c.get('sameSite') == 'no_restriction' else 0, 2, 443, now, 0, 0))
conn.commit()
conn.close()
print(f"Done! Written {len(fb_cookies)} Facebook cookies")
PYEOF

python3 /tmp/fix_cookies.py ~/Library/Application\ Support/DonutBrowser/profiles/[PROFILE_ID]/profile/Default/Cookies

10. Re-launched the profile and navigated to facebook.com
11. Facebook opened fully logged in — worked perfectly!

The workaround works but it's not practical — I have multiple profiles
and need to manually run this script in terminal for each one.

If possible, it would be great if the UI cookie import could be fixed
so it works the same way. Thank you!

[zhom]

Hi there and thank you for the report!

The first message was a bot. It read your issue, looked up relevant files in the source code, and did best-effort question generation. What you provided was very helpful in resolving the issue quickly. As of 0.20.0, the issue is resolved. Thanks!

[gaspe1210-lang]

Hi, thank you! I updated to version 0.20.0 and everything works perfectly now. Cookies import through the UI without any problems, and Facebook logs in right away. ср, 8 апр. 2026 г. в 20:57, andy ***@***.***>:

…

*zhom* left a comment (zhom/donutbrowser#265) <#265 (comment)> Hi there and thank you for the report! The first message was a bot. It read your issue, looked up relevant files in the source code, and did best-effort question generation. What you provided was very helpful in resolving the issue quickly. As of 0.20.0, the issue is resolved. Thanks! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#265 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/CBMYVDE43HV3YRZO7E22VHL4U2HKFAVCNFSM6AAAAACXPZ3UKKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DEMBYGM2TIOJVG4> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>