Why Would Setting Document.cookie Not Work In Chrome?

My coworker ran into an issue where NO cookie could be set on Chrome via code like this: document.cookie = 'TEST=1; expires=Tue, 14 Oct 2014 20:23:32 GMT; path=/' Putting document.

Solution 1:

The way cookies work, at least in Chrome, is a bit weird.

If you need to change a cookie's value, then you need to add/set each keys one by one.

Try this in your console:

document.cookie; // -> "expires=Tue, 14 Oct 2014 20:23:32 GMT; path=/"document.cookie = 'TEST=1';
document.cookie; // -> "TEST=1; expires=Tue, 14 Oct 2014 20:23:32 GMT; path=/"

Yes, it has added the key, and not replace the whole cookie with TEST=1.

If you need to remove a key, you can simple provide no value: TEST=.

I hope this will get you out of the cookie nightmare (it was for me).

Solution 2:

Make sure to run it on a server (at least a local server) so that document.cookie works.

If you locally run this file in the browser. "document.cookie" wouldn't work.

Solution 3:

As another user mentioned, you have to set them one-by-one. These functions can be useful in parsing & applying a cookie string:

functionclearCookies(){
    var cookies = document.cookie.split(';');
    for(i in cookies){
        var vals = cookies[i].split('=');
        var name = vals.shift(0, 1).trim();
        document.cookie = name+'=';
    }
}
functionparseCookies(cookie){
    clearCookies();
    var cookies = cookie.split(';');
    for(i in cookies){
        var vals = cookies[i].split('=');
        var name = vals.shift(0, 1).trim();
        document.cookie = name+'='+vals.join('=');
    }
}

Solution 4:

The expiry date set for the cookie might be the problem. I have come into a problem like this before on Chrome. Set the date to present or future date and test if it would work. Probably that was how Chrome was designed.