Network Problems

OK. The list I get isN... Va... D... Path Ex...Pas... JhC. ww / Mo...Ses 153... ww / Mo...Us... 73 ww / Mo...Us... Faith ww / Mo...Us... 1 ww/ Mo.... 'Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Those fields actually expand. If you hover your mouse over the vertical lines at the top of the columns you'll get a little horizontal double arrow that you can drag to make the field wider so you can see the entire value. You can also drag the edges of the pane and make the entire pane larger.The partial information I can see looks normal and okay, but I'd really like to see those expiration dates (when a cookie reaches its expiration date it disappears, and since these are the login cookies then when they disappear you're no longer logged in). I can tell they're all on a Monday, but whether that Monday is today or Monday a year from now I can't tell. They're probably Monday a year from now, but if by some weirdness they happen to be Monday today then later today you might suddenly find yourself logged out. And if they are Monday today then that's a good clue for me because it would mean there's some path through my software that can produce very short-term expiration dates (instead of a year out), and once I know that path exists it will make it easier to find it. It is the curse of debugging that believing something isn't possible makes it impossible to find the problem.Don't give out any information about your password cookie - malicious people probably know how to fake cookie values on their own system and log on as you.--Percy

How would I recognize my password cookie?

Did that. Five items on the list now say Tuesday Sept 24 2019abe: By the way, if I was suddenly logged off because of an expired date why would my name continue to be on the Online Now list?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Nice job working your way through this. This eliminates the cookie expiration date as the cause of the problem. The next time you're automatically logged out first make sure no message appears on the page - if my software cleared your cookies then it should also tell you why. If there's no message then immediately check your cookie values again - they should all be gone, and if any are present then it would represent a clue.You're only removed from the Online Now list when you explicitly log out. If you just delete cookies (or something deletes them for you) then you're not removed from the Online Now list until 30 minutes of inactivity have gone by.--Percy

It just happened again. I went to edit a post and got the login page. My name was in the Online Now list and the upper line said I was not logged in. Did look to see if there were any messages related to it and there weren't. Unfortunately I forgot to check the cookies. I'll do that now. ABE: all four items are listed for this date in 2019.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's an omen.

I haven't yet done my usual series of logging in and out and it keeps recurring when I hit "edit," so I just log in again and so far it hasn't happened when I'm about to post a message. But I'm copying all of them just in case.abe: this time I saw the usual situation at the top of the board and when I came to edit this message there was no "edit" button, so although it said I was online I was treated as logged out. So I logged in and can write this message, though I wonder if it will post.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And there was no informational message near the top of the page? That the cookies have expiration dates in 2019 means that they're all defined and will not expire until sometime in 2019, probably exactly a year from the date/time you tried to edit that post.If those cookies are all defined then the board software will assume you're logged in UNLESS it detects some problem with your cookies, for example, that the password cookie value doesn't match the password in the database. But a cookie problem causes an informational message to be printed near the top of the page, so if there's no message then I don't know what to think. If an idea occurs to me I'll let you know.--Percy

No message but I'll look even more carefully next time it happens. Which will probably be soon because I'm not logging in and out as I usually do which does clear the problem for a while.

Just now had two pages open, one logged in and one logged out. The one logged out had "Faith" listed as Online Now. I closed that page but then the other one changed to show that discrepancy. I logged in and now it looks normal but we'll see what happens if I post something, such as this message. No admin messages appeared anywhere on either page.

Just now I got kicked to the login page as I tried to post a message. I checked first to see if the info at the top said both that I was logged in and my name was Online Now and it did, but I copied the post just in case and hit "submit reply." At that point my name was still Online Now but the top line said I was logged out and I was on the login page. If I hadn't copied the post it would have been lost.AND there was a message saying something about a dispatch error, control does not exist or something like that, I should have written it down.So I logged in and out about three times and tried again to post the message. This time it went through.Edit, 4:35 AM Normally I would log in and out more than that and reboot the computer as well, which usually gives me some days of freedom from the problem. But since I'm trying to observe it I'm only doing enough to keep posting, and that means the problem reoccurs more frequently. As it just did again when I went to edit that post. Hitting "edit" sent me to the login page and changed the info at the top from logged in to logged out. So I logged in, just once, and was able to post the edit. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Interesting. Did this problem begin when you switched from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge? Can you try switching to IE, FireFox or Chrome to see if the problem occurs there too?--Percy

I got Microsoft Edge when they forced the switch to Windows 10 on me which has been a few years ago now. I don't think the problem occurred before a few months ago, maybe a year but I don't really remember how long it has been. It might be worth doing the test you suggest at some point but it's fairly laborious so I may not get to it for a while.

Getting to Internet Explorer is easy. On the far right side of the Microsoft Edge window near the top are three horizontal dots. Click on this icon and you'll get a menu. One of the selections in the menu is "Open with Internet Explorer". Click on this and Internet Explorer will open.--Percy