Is the Forum logging you out?

[admin]

One of our members has reported that the forum is logging them out during a session. This is particularly annoying when they have spent half-an-hour typing a reply only to find it lost when they click on Post Quick Reply or Submit Reply. If they are logged out the following message appears:

"Username, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?

If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

Your status can be verified at the top of the screen. Does it have, Welcome, Usename.? Or, login fields to enter Username and Password? The latter, I'm sure, if you are logged out. Now, your status is Guest and your forum permissions are restricted including no posting.

I discovered, by a search on the internet, that people on other forums have had a similar problem. Here are some examples:


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I Can't Get My Board to Remember Me After I Close My Browser

I can't get my board to remember me after I close my browser. And even sometimes after I've logged in, when I check my profile, etc., it asks me to log in again.

In the options I have the "use cookies" choices set to yes. I tried setting up as another user, and got the same problem. I don't have this problem on anyone else's board, just mine.

What can I do?

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auto login not working

for some reason my auto login isn't working. cookies are enabled and the "remember me" is checked next to the login but I have to type my name/pw in everytime, plus I also get two probetalk windows popping up on me everytime, both are the main menu I like surfing PT and all but I only need one screen.

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I'm having the same problems with auto log-in....maybe more so than others.

Auto log-in doesn't work for me no mater how I try to access PT, even with the "remember me" box checked and my cookies set to "accept all cookies".

I just came on and made a reply to this thread a minute ago, and when I hit the "submit reply" button, it said I wasn't logged in and I lost the reply, and had to log-in again.

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Login not working

I registered 10 minutes ago. In the space of 10 minutes the forum has now refused to let me view any part of the forum for members only, despite the fact it worked 10 minutes ago.

I went to request a login/password resetting, i get the e-mail from you guys, only that when i copy and paste the link given to me in the e-mail i get a box that says "The link you have used is invalid. Please use this form to request a new link."

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This was our member's complaint:

"Despite having gone through the motions of logging on and being accepted according to my screen, I am again unable to participate in the site or visit most of its stations. I was notified overnight of a reply to a thread I participated in Yesterday and I spent half an hour of my valuable time replying to it only to find it had disappeared into oblivion once again.

I am also unable to access the site today via the normal channels because of a "BAD GATEWAY" and can only reach the site by responding to message sent to me by E. Mail. The latest problem is that each time I try to participate I am told to log on. I do this, am accepted and then when I try to submit my contribution I am told that to proceed I must log on."

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My response was:

Hi Username,

Sorry you have been experiencing these problems. I understand how frustrating that must be. Bear in mind that I haven't received complaints from other users so it is highly likely that the problem is at your end.

After some lengthy research and communication with the vBulletin developers it appears you have a cookie problem. What the nature of that problem is or what caused it cannot be determined remotely so we need to assume you have corrupt cookies that are not doing their job properly.

It is possible to set your browser to block any cookies that are sent from the forum when you manually login but your session would still end after 15 mins of inactivity. This is a forum setting which I can extend but which relates to the feature called Who's Online and Mark Posts Read. In otherwords, if you stop browsing or posting on the forum for 15 mins, the system will remove your name from the Who's Online list and all posts will be Marked as Read so that any postings after that time will be flagged to you as New Posts next time you are active again.

If you had received good cookies when you first logged on with the Remember Me? option checked, and those cookies weren't deleted or corrupted between your last visit and next visit, then when you return to the forum site, in top right corner of the home page it should say Welcome, Username. If you find a login form which requires you to re-enter your Username and password again it means the cookies were not active because they were missing or corrupted.

I advise you to check your system for any cookies sent by www.world-a-team.com . My Windows platform is ME and I get two cookies - one placed in the C:\Windows\Cookies folder, and the other in C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files folder. They are text files which you can open in Notepad. They contain the domain name, sets of numbers and words like bblastvisit, bblastactivity, bbuserid, bbpassword, sessionhash. These are the cookies. If those files exist, delete them. All cookies are now cleared. When you return to the forum you will need to manually login again. Leave the Remember Me? ticked. After you have logged in you should find fresh cookies have been placed in your PC again. If they have and are not corrupted you should not be logged out after 15 mins.

Test this - stay on the home page for 15 mins without touching your mouse. Leave your computer and come back after 15 mins. Now click any link and look at the top of the page. It should say Welcome Username. Although, your session ended after 15 mins you should not have been logged out and made a Guest. This doesn't happen with me or the others because our cookies are working correctly. Do this test and let me know the result. If you can't find your cookies the system will automatically clear them if you manually log out.

You can find the Log Out on the far right end of the Navigation bar or Menu bar just below the log in. If you log out this will clear the old cookies from your PC and when you log in again you will receive a fresh set of cookies. Does this help?

Regards, Mike/admin

[admin]

If you are experiencing the cookie-related problem in the previous post, and it is still persisting, then try these two bandaid solutions:

1. Scott MacVicar, a Senior member of vBulletin.com, wrote the following useful script to remove forum-related cookies from your PC. When you link to it, it will detect whether you have world-a-team cookies on your PC. If you don't a screen will appear with the following message: You have no Cookies

If the script has found cookies it will show you what cookies you have related to that domain and gives you the option to delete them.

When they are deleted a screen will appear with the following message: You have no Cookies

Apparently, this operation is different to manually deleting the cookies yourself. As I explained in the previous post you would be logged off after the 15 minute session time-out. However, this script will enable you to stay logged in after the session time-out. Don't know how it works, but it seems to work.

To use the script click Scott MacVicar's Cookie Killer

2. Second bandaid solution I stumbled on myself earlier today. It seems to work.

Login to the forum home page and open the Who's Online page as a New Window by right-clicking the Currently Active Users link. Now you have two windows open. In one window, you are in Who's Online which is refreshing every 60 secs and updating your Last Activity every minute. While this is happening you can browse and post within the first window. There is no way you can get caught out reading a long thread by the 15 min session time-out. I tried it and it seems to work.

What is an Activity? Typing a reply or moving a scroll-bar is not an activity. Clicking on a link to open a message editor or go to another page are Activities. So, it is easy to spend more than 15 mins without registering any Activity if you are reading a long thread or making a long post. Without good cookies on your PC, you could exceed the session time-out and be automatically logged out and possibly lose a long post!

So why don't I change the session time-out to 24 hours? That way, you'll stay logged in despite bad cookies. If the session time-out was set it to 24 hours, people would be listed on the Currently Active Users list for the whole day, even when they weren't online, which would make it useless. Also when they come back to the site any threads posted in that 24 hours would not be marked as new for them (unless they clicked Mark Forums Read before they closed their browser).