User logged-out after 5 minutes..

[daba]

I regularly contribute on another forum, built on vBulletin 3.7.4

I am constantly being automatically logged-out after exactly 5 minutes, and I am pretty certain it is a board problem with my account, as it happens with all the PCs I use, different browsers, and even different ISPs.

The board administrator appears to be unwilling or unable to rectify the problem, (I suspect he doesn't know how to), and was hoping to be able to provide him with detailed instructions on where this setting resides, or what the problem could be.

I have successfully created a second account that does not exhibit the behaviour, so it must be a problem with my original account.

can anyone enlighten me please....

[Greg]

Enable cookies and click keep me logged in when logging into the board. If that don't work upgrade the board and see what happens.

[daba]

Thanks Greg, but I don't believe cookie handling on my PC is the isuue.

I can log-in to my original account now with this PC - and I get booted after 5 minutes.

I can log-in to the alternate account with this same PC - and I remain logged in - no changes made to the PC setup, or the log-in method.

This makes me convinced it is a problem on the bulletin board.

[Greg]

Is the cookie path, url path and such in the ACP correct? It's an old board. Many things could be going on. If you are not an admin, I don't think there's much you can do.

[daba]

As I said in my OP - it is not my board, and the admin of the board don't want to resolve the issue.

If I could just get a definitive "Here's how to fix this" from someone, I could pass this on....

Failing that, I think the only way forward would be to just keep the new log-in which doesn't have the problem, perhaps putting a reference to my old account name in my new signature.

[bigH2O]

It is a cookie issue. The cookie for the one ID is expired and no longer valid. The cookie for the other ID is fine. This will happen from time to time if you have something strange happen like a cat or dog bumping up against your power switch while the PC is on, or a thunderstorm knocking the power out. Abnormal shutdowns will mess your cookies up. Delete your cookies and re-log. You'll be fine.

[daba]

Originally Posted by bigH2O

It is a cookie issue. The cookie for the one ID is expired and no longer valid. The cookie for the other ID is fine. This will happen from time to time if you have something strange happen like a cat or dog bumping up against your power switch while the PC is on, or a thunderstorm knocking the power out. Abnormal shutdowns will mess your cookies up. Delete your cookies and re-log. You'll be fine.

Thanks for your input bigH2O, and it has got me even more baffled !

My cookie handling is set to clear on Firefox exit, and I have tested it several times, it does clear them all.

But I followed your suggestion anyway, and have not been able to reproduce the problem since.....

I still can't understand how "cookies" could explain why I got the same problem on any PC I used, desktop, or any one of two laptops? Surely they all can't have been affected similarly? And the laptops even have good batteries.

And your reply seems to indicate my Firefox cookie handling settings don't work, which I have tested, and they do.....very odd !

And .....

I have had this problem on the site for ages - and during that time I have accessed it with various PC's, using various browsers, and even via different ISPs (hotels and hotspots). They all exhibited the same "problem".

In fact the PC I am using now is virtually "new" - i.e. new mobo, new install of XP Pro, and I still had the problem immediately after the rebuild. This hasn't been a random phenomenom either, it happened every time I used the site.

The evidence doesn't add up - at least not for me.....

Any fiurther thoughts would be much appreciated, in the meantime, I will continue to see if the problem has "gone away", which my test posts seem to indicate they have !

I thought I had narrowed this down - but I am more confused now....my thoughts now are that the site admin has spotted the "setting" or configuration, and has quietly put it right, but I have had no indication from them......

regards,
daba

[bigH2O]

I doubt the administrator did anything. About the only thing you can do out of the box with forum software is change the cookie path on the server, and nobody ever messes with that unless they have some strange configuration like two separate boards within the same url.

The server handles processing the cookie. Most likely what is happening is that the server has recognized that the cookie is there, but it's corrupt, probably due to the system powering off while the site was loaded. The system can't determine your status so it forces you to log in again, but since the cookie already exists (even though it's corrupt) it doesn't write a new cookie. It relies on the old, corrupt one. When cookie checking is performed again, the whole cycle starts over. Once you delete the old cookie, then the system will recognize that a cookie doesn't exist and will write a new one and you'll be golden until that cookie gets corrupted.

Just make sure your PC goes through an orderly shutdown and you should never experience problems with cookies. Even if you don't go through an orderly shutdown you shouldn't experinece problems with cookies as long as your browser isn't open and sitting on a site that uses cookies.

[daba]

Its been a few days - and I did NOTHING in MY setup, browser cookie handling still set the same etc. etc., but the issue seems to have disappeared.

I have done a huge amount of research on this issue, and started using the "Remember Me" check-box, but now i don't need to, i can still post even if i wait >5mins.

I'm going to try waiting 10, 15, 20, etc untill i get titred of waiting.... but initial thoughts are that the site admin has made a change - or applied a global setting, or whatever - so far, so good