# Arghhhh, logged out again! **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 20, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636 "2002-04-20T04:00:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/21 "2002-06-17T04:20:29Z")
sailor - you could try a different OS, a different browser, or a different ISP. Does this happen to you with other boards that run vBulletin 2.2.4 ? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/22 "2002-06-17T08:01:03Z")
It does not happen with other boards like [hardforum.com](http://hardforum.com) so it is clearly an issue with this board. Other posters here often complain about the same thing so it is not an issue with my computer only. And since it started happening I have changed the entire system and it still happens. I am quite sure the issue is with this board’s software and it is _most_ annoying. I hope it can be fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Jenner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac8455/32.png) [@Jenner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenner)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/23 "2002-06-17T10:26:51Z")
I’ve been having the same problem with random logouts since the board changeover. I’m using Opera 6.03 and Win2k, I have cookies enabled, and I’m not surfing through a proxy. It’s not a major problem; I can deal with it. But it’s annoying sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2002, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/24 "2002-06-17T14:35:31Z")
Then it might be related to our overworked server. I have no idea why it happens. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/25 "2002-06-18T09:26:13Z")
Maybe we could sacrifice some virgins or something. . . ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/26 "2002-06-18T09:35:17Z")
Wouldn’t that be an awful waste? ---
**Author:** ![reprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@reprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reprise)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/27 "2002-06-18T09:36:16Z")
FFF, Unaboard, and the Opera Forums all use vBulletin 2.2.4 and I haven’t read about the logout problem on any of them. My guess it that’s a combination of our unusually large and active membership, the overworked hamster, and the specific way in which vBulletin 2.2.4 has been configured for the SDMB. Thanks goodness it **isn’t** anything more than a slight and occasional annoyance; we might be hard pushed finding enough virgins to appease the vBulletin gods. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/28 "2002-06-18T11:26:00Z")
Actually I also have this problem but I just resign in and it goes through Now whats odd is when ya do ya board maintience for the night you dont have the old page telling us thats what yout doing … i either get the tech error or the page dosent load … If i hadnt known what time the board went down everynight id of sent tons of mails heh ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2002, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/29 "2002-06-18T13:55:17Z")
From [the FAQ](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1959053#post1959053): > [@](#): > > Usually board maintenance is at the same time every night - from 03:30 to about 04:15 (Chicago, Illinois, USA time) the database is locked down so that we can capture a consistent backup. Due to the current hardware configuration the old system of modifying the status of the SDMB to present a “down for maintenance” screen is no longer in place. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/30 "2002-06-23T03:51:39Z")
Netscape 4.78 Cookies - accept all cookies Internet Explorer 5 Cookies - allow stored cookies and session cookies Mozilla 0.9something Cookies - ??? Windows 98 No proxy DSL No, I am not checking on another ISP - it’s happening to too many people for it to be an ISP problem. Yes, I have the user cp options set correctly - I have since we started on the new software. The latest time I was logged off, I was logged off less than 40 minutes after I had posted. I had done nothing in IE5 except browse MPSIMS. I have worked with cookies in the past, and I have to say that their explanation that the problem is on the client side is bullshit. Cookies work very simply - the server asks the client to store information as a key/value pair with an expiration date. The server can also request the value for a key. When the server makes the request, the value will be returned if it exists and the value has not expired. The information is stored with the domain name, so that a server can only access information for the current domain. If the information was getting corrupted in transit, my entire connection would be corrupted. If my client wasn’t storing the expiration date correctly, I would have other sites logging me out. I have been logged into LiveJournal for three months at a time in Navigator. I have been logged into live365 via IE5 since about last _August_. If the problem was with the client, I wouldn’t have had the problem on _3 different clients_. :mad: Here is the contents of my current cookie (Note, after the last login) bblastvisit 1024800246 [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 1357313408 29571377 1153989504 29497951 \* bbuserid 553 [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 4292411520 29571380 3887687616 29497954 \* bbpassword _encrypted password removed_ [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 4292411520 29571380 3888187616 29497954 \* I will try to remember to capture and post my cookie the next time I logout. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/31 "2002-06-23T20:08:49Z")
bblastvisit 1024856530 [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 1546597632 29571508 1166173728 29498082 \* And after logging in bblastvisit 1024856530 [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 1546597632 29571508 1166173728 29498082 \* bbuserid 553 [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 112088192 29571523 4021931584 29498096 \* bbpassword _password removed_ [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 112088192 29571523 4021931584 29498096 \* ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/32 "2002-06-27T02:09:56Z")
I was logged out. I’m presenting the circumstances so that they ight aid in the identification of some common or significant conditions. I’m not asking for moderators’ comments, but they can comment if they wish. I noticed I was logged out by the appearance of the session hash in the thread URL. My time was 6:37 PM. The forum index and thread I had just displayed gave the time as 12:37 AM GMT. This is a bit odd because I know that there’s a 5 hour difference between my time (Chicago, Daylight Savings) and GMT. Is this BST (British Summer Time) instead? I think we’ve covered this before. I use Cookie Crusher 3.0 which manages cookies. It reports that the SDMB generated two cookies at 6:09:12 PM (my time). The first expires “end of session” and is type “sessionhash”. Its value is the same as the string of characters that now show up in the thread URL. The second expires 2003/06/26 and is type “bblastvisit”. Of course, this is a permanent cookie and it’s how the SDMB knows when I last visited. Its value is 1025133190, apparently seconds since midnight UTC 1/1/1970. Taking into account Daylight Savings Time, this matches the SDMB home page which now says I last visited at 12:13 AM GMT 6-27-2002. That’s a 4 minute difference from the time Cookie Crusher reports. I’ve just checked my PC against one of the atomic clocks, and it’s 65 seconds slow. The rest of the difference must be connected with the SDMB’s slow response. Cookie Crusher shows the SDMB cookie before that was generated at 5:51:31 PM. It is type “bbthreadview[122529]”, obviously when I viewed that thread. Its value is 1025132123, which is again 4 minutes later than Cookie Crusher’s time. Between those are a number of cookies from other sites. I’m pretty sure I went to view those other sites because that’s what I usually do when the SDMB is bogged down. So maybe this logging out is another unfortunate and unavoidable result of the overloaded SDMB. I’ve now signed back in. Cookie Crusher asked whether or not to accept the 2 SDMB cookies, and I accepted them. The SDMB home page says “You last visited: 06-26-2002 05:55 PM.” My setup: [ul][li]MSIE 5.5[/li][li]Window 98 [/li][li]Using Norton Antivirus email proxy[/li][li]SDMB settings are “automatically log in” and “browse with cookies”[/li]Browser cookie settings - accept all. Further controlled by Cookie Crusher. Accepts all cookies which expire in 1 day or less. Prompts for all others.[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2002, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636/33 "2002-07-04T22:32:41Z")
Timestamp on cookie file: 7-4, 1:02 PM Contents bblastvisit 1025806064 [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) 0 713906176 29573719 3882449568 29500292 \* IE History - At 12:34 I visited this page [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=123836](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=123836) At 1:08, I visited this page (I don’t remember this, hmmm): [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php) And this page: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&forumid=4&x=14&y=2](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&forumid=4&x=14&y=2) And this page: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=123507](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=123507) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arghhhh-logged-out-again/104636.md?page=1)