For the 2nd time today I was replying to a post in which I was in “deep thought” and BAM! You have been logged off due to inactivity . What the heck!!! I know aol (un-deserving of those caps) used to do this in the past but I haven’t experienced it for a long time. I’ve been a long time member (5 years) and have been pretty satisfied but for a few minor things, but I’m seriously getting tired of this. So now every time I’m posting I have to make sure they know I’m still here and pretend to check my email or something. How lame is that?! Geez…
hurm…
Maybe it is a setting problem?
I have been known to screw up and forget to log off and wake up to find I had been logged on for the entire evening.
Nothing more fun than deleting loads of ICQ spam messages I tell ya.
cant say how to go about finding the setting to fix it.
But there might be hope for you yet!
Osip
When I was on AOL years ago, I had the same problem. I was constantly getting logged off while reading long threads or web pages. I was even getting logged off while downloading files and patches.
I called several times to ask if I could change my logout time and was basically told: “Too bad, that’s the way we do it and if you don’t like it you can get another service.”
So I did. 
Time to find a new ISP. (Well, I should say, “time to finally get a REAL ISP.”)
Yeah, I know. The obligatory AOL-bashing. Someone had to.
Have you tried finding a web site that refreshes itself every few minutes, and then have it running in the background? Though I don’t know if that would help if some AOL users are being booted off in the middle of downloading things. Sheesh.
I am so glad I dumped AOL a long time ago. I only had them for a few months, when I got my first computer. After I kept on having to reinstall the software, and work around the bugs, I decided that they weren’t worth keeping. It was so much better to pull the plug soon, rather than wait and wait until my AOL email address was spread all over everywhere.
Now I’m stuck with EarthLink (and my EarthLink email address is spread all over everywhere!). EarthLink’s still much better than AOL, though. (IMO)
Any suggestions on where I would find a site like this?
Many years ago when I used AO-Hell I had the same problem. I got around it by installing a small program that essentially disabled the timeout feature. I did a quick search for it and found this little nugget.
I also found a newer version of theat anti timeout program at http://www.hsqrd.com/wizon.html.
Hope this helps.
My family tried AOHell using one of the “free trial” disks. It was such a pain in the ass that we have never used AOL disks for anything except drinks coasters again.
I always used to use IE for browsing the Web even when I used AOL to connect up. At least I wouldn’t lose everything when I inevitably got logged off or randomly disconnected.
For a website, you can try www.drudgereport.com That site seems to refresh itself every few minutes, and you can keep up to date on his particular brand of news.
Thanks cblackhand - works like a charm 
I’m on AOL and I never get the inactivity boot. I’ve gone to bed and forgot to log out, woke up in the morning, and was still connected.
Maybe it’s an area thing?
I’ve had AOL for maybe a year - never had the ‘inactivity’ problem. It IS, however, sucking ass tonight for a different reason. I try to load up websites & it keeps telling me they’re not available. Bites my ass.
I don’t know if it’s an area thing, but it just started happening a few weeks ago. Maybe they changed something in their system? Sometimes I get a warning with a little box that comes up and says “Do you want to stay online” and I click Yes and then without warning I get logged off a few minutes later. Whatever the reason is I do believe it’s just about time to say goodbye to aol.