Logging In

[CactusMan]

Thanks RadarRoy, I was having only the rare occasional problem of having been logged out. Since yesterday, it has been constant - everytime I log on to this site (including today). I even checked log me on automatically when I visit this site- to no avail.

[crazyVOLVOrob]

might be your personal computer security settings

[nomore55]

might be your personal computer security settings

I log in to many sites during the day. This is the only site where I have the log-in problem.

[kpatz]

So far, I only have the problem on my work computer using IE. I have a junkbuster proxy and Cookie Pal, but I've been registered here about two weeks and have had no problems until yesterday.

If I'm away from the site for a period of time (say more than an hour or two), and then come back, that seems to be when I end up not logged in.

On my home computers (using Firefox), I've had no problems whatsoever. I logged in once after registering here and I've been logged in ever since, on those computers.

Let me look in my cookie log and see if anything jumps out at me.

[kpatz]

Ok, I did some digging and the problem seems to be related to the phpbb2mysql_data cookie. This cookie has a 1 year expiration, and appears to house the login information so that the board "remembers" who you are.

Here's what the cookie looks like when I'm logged into the board (note, I HTML-decoded the data, and obfuscated some sensitive stuff such as my password):

a:2:{s:11:"autologinid";s:0:"";s:6:"userid";s:3:"6 73";} (673 is presumably the numerical representation of my user ID on the board, kpatz).

a:2:{s:11:"autologinid";s:32:"(MD5 representation, probably my password)";s:6:"userid";s:3:"673";}

The problem arises when I re-enter the board from a fresh browser session. The board gives me a new phpbb2mysql_data cookie, containing the data "a:0:{}", which overwrites the cookie that contained my saved login.

What I don't understand is why it is only happening on my work computer where I use Internet Explorer, but it doesn't happen on my home PCs with Mozilla Firefox.

[kpatz]

Update: I tried on my laptop in both IE and Firefox, and I stayed logged in.

I then tried going into my IE Tools->Options on my work computer, and cleared ALL my cookies. Then I logged back into the site, and the cookie seems to be sticking now.

So, for those who are having trouble with "losing your cookie", try clearing all your cookies in IE and then restart the browser.

I don't know offhand why only this site had troubles, but so far it's holding. I'll have to see if I'm logged in still tomorrow when I go in again.

[CactusMan]

I just deleted all my cookies as well and so far its working. I automatically log on when I come here. Thanks for the suggestion.