Posts made by MichaIng

@ss9227 I tested --disable-features=DIPS, and it increases the time until permissions are lost, or adds some one-time longer delay, until permissions are lost again, but it does not "solve" the issue. When I added this to my Opera startup link, permissions remained stable for maybe a week, before the issue reappeared. Afterwards, it happened again much sooner, though I did not test yet whether every 1-2 hour like before.

Allowing 3rd party cookies is even worse than disabling DIPS, as the latter is meant to make disabling 3rd party cookies more reliable. I won't test this, as I do not want to make it too easy for advertisement networks to track me across websites.

But that this has an effect as well for you, shows that the bug is somehow tied into the 3rd party cookie/privacy protection stuff. But while it has an effect, it does not seem to be the exact trigger for the lost permissions.

@ss9227
I'll try it out.

But for everyone else: DIPS, renamed to BTM in the meantime, is a privacy feature of Chromium, which mitigates bounce tracking, i.e. if links do not point to the actual target website, but an intermediate website, which only sets a tracking cookie, and redirects you further to the actual target website, that way bypassing 3rd party cookie blocks. Chromium e.g. prevents this tracking cookie to be set, and it might also reset permissions for websites detected for bounce tracking. More details: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/main/content/browser/btm/README.md

It is possible that Opera breaks this feature with downstream patches, so that it detects regular websites as bounce tracker ones, and then resets their permissions.

But I would not recommend to disable this feature for production, as it makes you vulnerable for being tracked across websites.

@burnout426
As I mentioned above, "Automatically remove permissions from unused sites" has no effect on this.

Site settings are not cleared when the browser is stopping. It really is the permissions which vanish mid operation, while the website is open, mid WebRTC video call, in case.

I do not use Opera Sync, I keep the instance logged out.

Profile permissions are fine. As I mentioned above, I can see the respective permissions set in the JSON file, and I can see them removed again at some point.

I did start with an entirely fresh Opera instance and profile at some point. But the issue reappeared. But IIRC it really appeared after some while, like some weeks, not immediately.

It is not limited to notifications, but to all website permissions, like microphone and camera access, which is why WebRTC video calls break down in the middle of calls.

I do not use CCleaner or similar, only Opera accesses its profile dir.

It certainly is a bug. But as of the low number of users joining in here, it might not affect all instances, but have some condition. First I thought it might be that I use a portable instance, but others here use an installed instance as well.

@herdivineshadow Yes, all permissions are lost, including notifications. Basically in the Opera Site settings, all permissions (allow/deny lists) are empty, except fow what you granted/denied within the last max 1-2 hours. And at some point (not immediately), this is also reflected in the preferences JSON file in the Opera profile directory.

So the issue is more widespread than I thought, affecting multiple (probably all) Opera browser variants on multiple (probably all) platforms. Likely it is a bug in the core code of Opera. I did not verify it another time, but IIRC the issue did not appear immediately on a fresh Opera instance, but after some days or weeks of usage. So it might have to do with the overall amount of data loaded from the profile, as if it cleared permissions as sort of a cleanup step.

I btw tested to disable this "Enhanced privacy protection" setting, but it does not help, permissions still get reset every 1-2 hours, roughly.

@Pearlkitty Interesting: a very different setup than me (Win 11 portable). I thought it must be done edge case since no one else reports this, and the issue is pretty major IMO.

@Pearlkitty Do you use Opera GX as portable version, or regular installer? And which OS?

I was trying to block the Yandex Metrica tag script from being loaded in websites with a custom list: https://mc.yandex.ru/metrika/tag.js

I created an adblick.list file and added just that plain URL to a single line, added it as custom tracker list (tested as well as custom ads list), but did not work. Used ||mc.yandex.ru/metrika/tag.js, ||mc.yandex.ru^, ||mc.yandex.ru/metrika/tag.js$script and a bunch of other ABP/EasyList syntax, but did not work either. Added [Adblock Plus 2.0] as first line and some common dummy comments, but did not change anything.

I then thought that Opera might internally whitelist it for some reason, overriding even custom rules, but any other attempt to block some script does not have any effect either. I also created some test HTML <script src="https://mc.yandex.ru/metrika/tag.js"/> to test blocking this and some other scripts, but does not work.

Of course ad blocking and tracker blocking is enabled, including a bunch of pre-configured lists, which do all work: the browser icon about it is there, I see the number of ads/trackers blocked, I see them missing in sources and the related console entries etc. It all works well with the pre-configured lists, but any attempt to block anything with a custom list does not work for me.

And I missing something, some syntax detail, file format, file extension/name, any such?`

Ah, of course I removed/re-added/updated/edited etc the list in the GUI, relaunched the browser, cleared cache etc on every test iteration. Most importantly I monitored browser developer tools network tab with cache disabled to see the script being loaded with 200, verifying that the exact request URL matches my rule.

@leocg Opera One latest stable version. Removing permissions from unused sites is disabled already. And of course it should never remove permissions within hours, even while using the site:

Permissions are btw again lost since my last post. I recognized that they did not appear in "Recent activity" of the Site settings. I enabled the permissions via settings now (instead of prompt), can see this in "Recent activity", and will check whether they disappear in both places at the same time.

Might this enhanced privacy protection setting be related?

But AFAIK I have this issue already since before this setting even existed.

Opera is regularly experimenting, and to give new ideas somewhat more audience, they create a fork for them. Often, at some point, those features end up in a less radical way in the regular Opera browser.

• Opera One is just the name of a new GUI rework implemented into the regular Opera desktop browser.
• Opera One R3 is hence a recent update of this new GUI, as well part of the regular Opera browser.
• Opera GX is the desktop Opera with gaming design and some gaming features.
• Opera Air is the desktop Opera with some health and relaxation reminders and features.
• Opera Neon is a desktop Opera with AI heavily integrated. Not sure how much core Opera features (aside of Chromium backbone) is still inside.

So basically:

• Usually, and what I would recommend, is using using the regular Opera (desktop) browser with the red O, which has One/One R3 included.
• If you are a gamer and like the design of Opera GX, use that one. I think the GX specific features come on top, and the design is a wider theme only anyway.
• If you want your browser to remind you of and show you relaxation techniques, try Opera Air. Similarly, AFAIK those features come on top of the regular Opera browser. Not sure whether I would want my browser to take care of such things, or better a dedicated application or own common sense.
• If you are an AI enthusiast ... well, no, I will never recommend to use a browser with AI so tightly built in. I even deleted and removed permissions to reinstall Aria for my regular Opera browser instance. If I want to use AI, then explicitly, never implicitly, and then I use whichever particular provider/model with whichever particular app or website, and not want such in any of my applications, at least not enforced and tied into. So my opinion: just forget about Opera Neon. They can provide a plugin to optionally install, but I am against everything beyond that.

Finally, for productive browsing: Use the regular Opera browser. Everything else is beyond serious browsing experience, if you ask me .

Now that is interesting:

• The entries in media_stream_camera and media_stream_mic for the two relevant websites remained, but the permissions were lost regardless.

• I had the Preferences file opened in notepad++ which informs me and reloads each time the file gets changed on disk, which happened at least every minute or so. I kept focus on mentioned two JSON keys, which remained there with the timestamps and "setting":1.

• Despite that, when accessing the two websites today, all permissions were practically lost and prompted again: notifications, cam, micro.

A fixed TTL of granted permissions can be ruled out, since they were still intact yesterday, at least half a day after I granted them last. While on the other hand, for one website permissions were lost ~2 hours after I granted them, during a WebRTC video call for which I granted camera and microphone access at start of meeting.

Hence they are somehow lost in-memory?

I found a similar report here: https://forums.opera.com/topic/69795

Checked a bit further:

• These permissions are stored in the portable apps dir profile/data/Default/Preferences file.
• When I grant permissions, either via settings, or from the prompt when the site asks, it appears in the media_stream_camera and media_stream_mic keys for camera and microphone access.
• These entries persist at first, also throughout Opera and system restarts. The whole profile is on the system drive, persistent. Right now I see still permissions granted yesterday during a video chat.
• But at some random point, those keys are emptied entirely, as said usually at least once in the middle of a video chat session, at once for all permissions of this site, probably all sites: notifications, camera, microphone, all at once.

I will monitor the file and those keys a little, to see at which point this happens again, whether the site needs to be open for this, or whether they are lost without any related tab open, and whether if really affects all permissions for all websites, or only all permissions for one website.

Write permissions or volatile storage or any such are hence not the issue. Probably there is a max in-memory Preferences size, after which certain keys are not processed anymore and practically handled and stored back as empty.

The file also contains a permission_actions key, which seems to store past permission prompts with timestamps and the action done. The number of actions stored in the camera and microphone subkeys is low, like 10-20, but it seems to contain timestamps of prompts from before the media_stream_* keys became empty yesterday. But I will monitor this as well.

Another explanation would be a hidden timeout for permissions, i.e. that this is an annoying and buggy feature, not a bug in general. Though I would expect more reports in this case, especially with the mid-usage permissions loss. But if timestamps wouldn't play a role, what for are those prompt actions with timestamps stored at all?

Since a long time (1 year or so), all websites regularly loose permissions to show notifications, access microphone and camera etc. This by times happens while the website is used, e.g. in the middle of a WebRTC video call.

I use a portable instance, and this happened already when I used the developer version until some months ago. I installed Opera stable completely freshly, did not migrate my profile, setting or any such, and after some days/weeks of usage, the issue reappeared.

Maybe others face the same, maybe it is an issue with portable instances in general?

@ss9227
Seems so. I replaced all bookmark images which ones that were not affected by the issue. But indeed favicons and the history seem to always load immediately now. Great!

100% agreed, a way to fully disable Aria is desperately needed. That it would not be possible as integrated too much into Opera is nonsense, it is just a question whether this is wanted or not.

One can disable the Aria background process for a while by manually editing the Preferences file in profile data (while the browser is closed), search for "igpdmclhhlcpoindmhkhillbfhdgoegm": key within extension block, and add "blacklist_state":1 to it, like the case for a number of hardcoded extension IDs, Opera obviously chose to prevent from running in this browser. However, the key gets removed in certain circumstances, probably on browser updates, not 100% sure yet.

Same problem here, since a longer while already:

• Favicons take about a minute to load.
• But it is not like that it takes a minute for every tab, once that particular tab is opened. Instead, once loading a favicon is triggered, some internal system hangs for about a minute: during this minute one can open further tabs which use favicons the one or the other way, and all of them on all open tabs will show up at once, after the ~minute triggered by the very first tab finished, even if the last new tab was opened just a second earlier.
• Once all currently "requested" tabs showed up, any new tab triggers a new minute hang.
• This does not only affect the favicons on the address bar, but also bookmarks/speed dial icons (for the latter only those inside a folder), if those are based on the favicon.
• Hence whenever opening a speed dial folder or accessing the opera://bookmarks/, all icons based on favicons show some replacement graphic until ~1 minute has passed.
• Also icon/graphics selection when adding a new bookmark from the top right dialog is not possible until the minute has passed, showing just a grey graphic without a way to navigate left/right.
• Most annoying for me is that opera://history/ is empty for a minute, since it also fetches favicons.

Same has been reported years ago, with very same symptoms: https://forums.opera.com/topic/64507/the-favicons-don-t-load

So it is some internal favicon fetching issue which affects a wide range of Opera features. I hope this gets more attention. Fetching a new cub of coffee whenever aiming to browse the history after CTRL+H is not exactly a schedule I can keep up much longer.

@burnout426 yes, that is quite likely, at least as long it is not only a flag, with the old cookies GUI still implemented in Chromium.

@leocg thanks for the info, and what a huge regression . Maybe Opera can bring it back?

I recognised that individual cookies cannot be removed or even seen anymore, but only all cookies for website removed, without any info/list about them. I know with developer options it is possible, but guys, this is such an essential feature, for transparency, security, a lot of practical tasks as well: please re-add it to the lock button GUI beside the address bar, and the settings. Is it this experimental cookies feature flag, which cannot be disabled, but only changed from "undefined" to "enabled"?

@daria19 I did just recognise that it is not the banner (only), but actually the GMX website in general, when accessing from here: https://millionenklick.gmx.net/
When I am at this page, not login or anything, and just click at the "GMX" logo at the top left of the page, a link to plain https://www.gmx.net/, it crashes.

Platform is Windows 11, a portable instance of Opera developer.

Regarding crash report uploads: yes, uploads are done/repeated every time until now. I generally have the impression that some of the settings I do are not permanently stored. It might be related to the structural changes of Opera profile data, where vast parts where shifted into a "Default" sub directory. E.g. also permissions to access camera, microphone, platform notifications etc, are not stored permanently. Camera and microphone access sometimes gets refused in the middle of a WebRTC video session, so that I need to reload the page and grant access again.