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Description of the issue: Brave on PC just reset after a reboot overnight
Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.
Reproduces how often: Randomly, usually several months apart. Now becoming weekly
Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu): Brave 1.84.141 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Chromium: 142.0.7444.176
Type of devices currently running on the Sync chain in question: One PC, one mobile phone
Additional Information: I donât know what is going on with this, but it happened several months ago and now it is happening again. I shutdown the PC last night and woke up this morning to Brave on my PC logged out of everything. It remembers my passwords and my bookmarks, but it logs me out of every single site. I do not do anything besides shutting the PC down. The mobile is perfectly fine and never has any issues. Itâs as though Brave is resetting itself. I fixed it before by completely removing it from the PC, deleting the full sync chain and then reinstalling it on the PC from scratch. The removal involves a full clear of every thing, even the residue files. None of my other browsers have this issue (Chrome and Firefox). What is going on with Brave?
So first and foremost, this part doesnât sound like it has anything to do with sync. Can you explain why youâre thinking this would be sync related?
Just be logging you out of stuff? Everything else is still good?
Not really a fix. Itâs just as if you logged into everything again. You just maybe went the long and inconvenient way around.
To be very clear, cookies donât sync. So logging in on one device wonât have you logged in on another.
Not sure, because so far most of the things you explained donât seem to be related to the areas youâre mentioning. If everything is working and youâre just being logged out of websites, thatâs not much of a concern in general as long as you can login again.
Obviously a person would need to go through all the settings to make sure youâre not deleting data and all, whether it be from within Brave or if itâs using some cleaner on your device which might be including Brave in its cleanup duties and is cleaning cookies.
Thanks for replying buddy. Let me address your points.
The reason i believed this, is because the sync chain disappears from the PC Brave, but not the mobile.
Everything else appears perfectly fine.
Agree, not a fix, but this is only happening on the PC Brave, never happens on the mobile one. The mobile one remains logged into everything indefinitely.
Yes itâs not really a concern, but itâs a huge inconvenience, especially when i have 2FA on a lot of sites and i mean a lot.
Nope, no software i use does this without it being told to do so by me. Although, it does come across as being Brave clearing internet data, something by default on other browsers is set at 30 days. Brave does not appear to have such an option, unless itâs hidden behind a flag, which if it is, thatâs a bit silly. The âdeleting browsing dataâ under âprivacy and securityâ has no ticks enabled âon exitâ. If it was clearing stuff from here, it would also delete the passwords. To be clear, when this started happening a few months ago, it would start doing it every few days, sometimes even with each browser closure and reopen. I had read somewhere (maybe Reddit, or on here) that it can be a corrupt profile thatâs breaking the browser. I find it hard to believe it only happens to Brave and no other browsers if it was a PC issue of some kind.
Ah, ok. This is what I was trying to make sure of. I thought you were saying all else was connected and it just was you getting logged out. So why I was trying to clarify there.
There are multiple different types of issues people are facing. Like the one you linked to was saying their settings reverted.
Iâm curious about the whole no longer being in the sync chain, as that shouldnât be happening. In fact, having a sync going is one of the ways to help avoid loss from sensitive data storage.
Btw, which OS are you on? I see the windows tag but I guess just trying to confirm if itâs Windows 10 or 11, etc.
Only if you chose to delete passwords. If it was just Cookies and site data then you would be logged out of the websites but it would retain the passwords.
Or in Shields the Forget me when I close this site would also be similar where youâd get logged out.
Also important to note in the past people were doing things like Avast Cleaner, CCleaner, or other programs which were meant to speed up their computers, free up space, or whatever. These would know to exclude Chrome as a bigger browser but they would include and clear up the files from Brave. Iâm not sure if that is still an ongoing issue, but itâs still something I always suggest as if you were running any internet security or utility apps/programs, it could be good to check .
-NOTE-
One of the things I would suggest if this happens again is to go to brave://sync-internals as some clues could potentially be there. Such as if it shows an existing sync chain or if itâs disconnected, if any errors in the log, etc.
Security software is a big nope from me, itâs all trash. CCleaner yes but that is installed on an as and when i feel itâs needed. As it stands itâs not installed.
System is Windows 11.
Apologies if iâm missing things out and then posting them after the fact when you have checked. The usual stuff has been checked and i donât run software that messes around with things unless i absolutely need to. So there is no clearing system files, no deleting caches, no kids or pets interfering, the system is literally just gaming on Battle.net and Steam, use of Discord, Youtube, general browsing, streaming tv shows / movies, use of a VPN (Surfshark), use of three web browsers (as mentioned previously - one for each different type of usage), use of extensions (Adblock plus, Enhancer for Youtube, Return Youtube dislikes, Youtube auto liker, Reload all tabs and IDM).
The main reason this annoys me so, is because as previously mentioned, 2FA is very tedious and with my work (forensics) this makes it even more so annoying
I think maybe lets confirm whether or not Sync is involved in this at all, or if it is just getting caught up in the crossfire of the real issue (and subsequently âvanishingâ).
First, @Liquid-X can you please go ahead and manually backup your passwords and bookmarks just to make sure this information isnât lost at any point? You can do this by launching Brave and: Passwords: go to brave://password-manager/settings then Export passwords Bookmarks: go to brave://bookmarks, click the overflow menu on the top-right of the page, then Export bookmarks
Next, Iâd like to see if you can trigger this issue when youâre not connected to the Sync chain. Can you please remove your PC from the Sync chain, then restart the machine and see if the same issue occurred upon reboot?
Done as youâve asked. Removed the sync from both the PC and the mobile. Rebooted and Brave on the PC is currently still logged in to Google, Email, Youtube, Wowhead (third party Warcraft site), Nexus mods, Discord and Steam without any issue.
So when Sync is disabled everything is retained. Interesting. Just to confirm, you went ahead and made backups of your bookmarks and passwords already, right? If not, please do so now.
Next Iâd like to try re-adding those devices to the chain one at a time to see when exactly the issue occurs. I know it is a bit of a hassle to test this way, but if you donât mind, can you please now try the following:
First, try creating a new Sync chain, starting with just your PC, but donât add your mobile or any other devices to it just yet. Simply create the chain, then restart your PC again. Are you still signed into all of the sites you were previously being logged out of?
Assuming the issue did not occur after performing the above, can you now go ahead and add your mobile device to the Sync chain you created above, then restart one more time and test to see if youâre still logged in upon reboot?
Thank you for testing.
So something with the Sync chain must have been firing incorrectly during the Sync process. As it is now, you have both browsers setup with Brave Sync as you did before â is that correct?
If so and everything is working as intended, continue to use the browser normally. If the issue occurs again, please let me know. I will leave this thread open in the event that that is the case.
This is very much not related to an issue Iâm tracking (since your passwords remained intact), but sync issues very much can be time-based without question (as in, which device updated first and last, therefore which has priority, etc).
If you go to time.gov, what is it showing for your computer clocks drift?
My only concern about it not being the clock is you said Chrome and Firefox arenât having issues, but every sync uses different authentication methods, and some are more time sensitive than others.
Ok good, just wanted to make sure it wasnât something like that. (And thanks for the data, been looking for anyone to just check this, much and highly appreciated! Even if it proves me wrong, lol.)
Iâm trying to think, because as you mentioned other browsers arenât being affected like this (and unlike other operating systems, Windows is fairly straightforward).
I donât wish to try this on my own machine so Iâll wait for a response from a dev, if itâs perhaps a corrupt preference file, does deleting it regenerate it? Since they already have their data backed up, maybe a regeneration of preferences is next?
