About once a week, I’ll turn on my computer, log on to the internet, and discover that all of my cookies have vanished. Web sites no longer recognise me. I have to reset my preferences at the Dope all the time. What’s going on? My computer seems to spontaneously rest my security levels. Sometimes when I check them, they’ve shot back up to “high.” No one else in my house uses this computer for internet access, so I can’t blame anyone for changing them. Does my computer hate me?
You’ll have to elaborate a bit. What kind of system are you using? What browser are you using? etc. etc.
I had a problem with this message board when we switched to Netscape 4.7 at work. It wouldn’t take cookies. It’s better now and I didn’t do anything. If your using Netscape, especially 4.7, you might do well to check with their technical forum.
Pluto, I have had Netscape 4.7 for awhile… but my SDMB cookie always gets lost… at least after every browser session. All my other cookies are ok. I even re-installed 4.7, and my CDnow always says ‘Hi’ to me. Did you do anything special to the default settings?!
The most rewarding part was when I got my money!
-Dr. Nick Riviera
I had the same problem, and came to the conclusion that Netscape 4.7 is completely useless, and against my sensibilities switched to IE. I have had no problems, and my cookies seem to work better than they did when using Netscape 4.6 even. I hate the taste of crow.
Would there be any chance that your cookies are disabled in Netscape? I use Communicator 4.7 too. You can adjust your setting from…
Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced
Just check if your cookies are disabled…
I swear I didn’t touch it!!
My computer at work is maintained by an (expletive deleted) system manager who may have made some changes I was unaware of. He installed 4.7 and I don’t think he’s been back but he has a habit of sneaking in and doing stuff when no one’s around. (They don’t let us administer our own machines because we can’t be trusted!)
It didn’t work for a while and now it works fine. BTW, the only site I noticed a problem with was this one. Not that I visit a whole lot of sites where I would notice cookie failures.
Sorry I can’t be more help.
p.s. Did I mention that I really hate having to grovel to an anal-retentive brown-nosing mindless bureaucrat to get anything done to my machine? Oh. Good.
“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen
Are you sure you didn’t eat 'em? Maybe you overindulged and got a bit silly?
I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…
T
Long time passing
Where have all the cookies gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the cookies gone?
Gl0worm ate them everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
::Looking around, realizing I’m not in a sound-proof booth like I thought:: :o
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Keebler elves!
Zor, I manipulated the settings for quite some time using all my creativity before caving into the Borg. This board really seems to magnify the problems, but I did have some minor quirks with other sites, mainly the “My” type site like My Yahoo and My Excite. I think its Netscape and not this board or UBB, but it sure sticks out like a sore thumb here.
I don’t know if this is a cookie problem, but I’m never able to see my own posts right away, even if I switch to another computer in my office. In another thread, I think TubaDiva said this might be related to some kind of cache maintained by the whole LAN in my office. Or is it something completely different? I dunno . . .
Exits, pursued by a bear
With Netscape it seems that sometimes your cookie file can get damaged. Every once in a while I go in and clean it out. It’s in your cache folder, called cookies.txt I think. You can open it in Notepad and delete all the useless crap.
–
Teeming Millions: http://fathom.org/teemingmillions
“Meat flaps, yellow!” - DrainBead, naked co-ed Twister chat
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
netscape couldn’t handle cookie dates later than '99. the old Y2K thing actually surfaced. So UBB needed to be updated. Some people can’t afford updating UBB. Same with other online software applications, which are going to be the wave of the future. Online software instead of software on your desktop.
You can get cookie managers from download.com. Your cookies are still there on the HD, search for ‘cookie’
Doghouse:
Probably your LAN has a proxy server that is caching pages you’ve viewed and giving you the same old page over and over.
If in doubt, hold down your shift key and hit reload/refresh. That forces the proxy server to get a new copy of the page.
pluto, given your entirely justified complaints against the systems group, you may find the following information useful in the future: :rolleyes:
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A peek into the thoughts of computer techs worldwide…an end user’s guide to technical services.
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When a tech says he’s coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It’s no problem for us to remember 2700 network passwords.
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When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and Popsicle art. We don’t have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
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When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it at once. We’re probably just testing out the public groups.
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When a tech is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts out and expect him to respond immediately. We exist only to serve and are always ready to think about fixing computers.
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When a tech is at the water cooler or outside having a smoke, ask him a computer question. The only reason why we drink water or smoke at all is to ferret out all those users who don’t have email or a telephone
line. -
Send urgent email ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
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When you call a tech’s direct line, press 5 to skip the bilingual greeting that says he’s out of town for a week, record your message, and wait exactly 24 hours before you send an email straight to the director because no one ever returned your call. You’re entitled to common courtesy.
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When the photocopier doesn’t work, call computer support. There’s electronics in it, right?
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When you’re getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can even fix telephone problems from here.
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When something’s wrong with your home PC, dump it on a tech’s chair with no name, no phone number, and no description of the problem. We love a good mystery.
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When you have a tech on the phone walking you through changing a setting; read the paper. We don’t actually mean for you to DO anything; we just love to hear ourselves talk.
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When we offer training on the upcoming OS upgrade, don’t bother. We’ll be there to hold your hand after it is done.
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When the printer won’t print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently just disappear into the cosmos for no reason.
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When the printer still won’t print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.
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Don’t use online help. Online help is for wimps.
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If you’re taking night classes in computer science, feel free to go around and update the network drivers for you and all your coworkers. We’re grateful for the overtime when we have to stay until 2:30am fixing them.
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When you have a tech fixing your computer at a quarter past one, eat your lunch in his face. We function better when slightly dizzy.
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Don’t ever thank us. We love this and we get paid for it!
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When a tech asks you whether you’ve installed any new software on this computer, lie. It’s nobody’s business what you’ve got on your computer.
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If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 45 lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.
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If the space bar on your keyboard doesn’t work, blame it on the mail upgrade. Keyboards work much better with half a pound of muffin crumbs, nail clippings, and big sticky drops of Coke under the keys.
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When you get the message saying “Are you sure?”, click on that Yes button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren’t sure, you wouldn’t be doing it, would you?
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Feel perfectly free to say things like “I don’t know nothing about that computer crap”. It never bothers us to hear our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.
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When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a Master’s degree in nuclear physics.
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When something’s the matter with your computer, ask your secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn’t know anything about the problem.
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When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone as a high-priority mail attachment. The way our company shells out money on equipment, you know we’ve got plenty of disk space and processor
capacity on that mail server. -
Don’t even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. God forbid somebody else might get a chance to squeeze into the queue.
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When you bump into a tech in the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a computer question. We work 24/7, even while at the grocery store on weekends.
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If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. We’ll be there for you when his illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes your Access database flip out.
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When you bring us your own no-brand home PC to repair for free at the
office, tell us how urgently we need to fix it so your son can get back to playing DOOM. We’ll get right on it because we have so much free time at the office. Everybody knows all we do is surf the Internet all day
anyway.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
Okay, if you’re accessing this site from work, then there are a few possibilities. Aside from the system manager messing with you, they are…
1): You’re accessing the internet through a proxy/firewall with some weird security settings. Hey, I clean my cookie file regularly, maybe your system manager has similar habits or its company policy.
2): Less likely, but still possible, is that each time your computer boots a script is run to clean your cookie files. Some computers even clean your cashe, scan for unknown files and programs and etc., thought he process could be done at shutdown equally as well.
Well, I guess I should just say I really have no idea what your problem is. I’d say you should start by monitoring your cookie file and see if it’s being cleaned out regularly. If it is, you can just as easily make a backup of your cookie file regularly.
As for the problem of not being able to see your post immediately after posting, it could be that your Javascript is not on, but I’m not sure. The setting for this is at the same location as the cookie. Just make sure that your Javasciprt (not Java) is enabled. If you eveer find yourself overwhelmed with annoying floating councils with ads, just turn off Javascript.
Hope that helps…
I hope you realized, Akatsukami, that I wasn’t ticked off at the techs who occasionally come by and do useful things to my computer (like fix it). They have always been competent and professional in my experience.
My gripe is with the guy who decided, a few years back, that what he’d like to do is be in charge of all the computing equipment in our group. He sold it to management as a cost-savings or something. Now he glories in his role as Lord High Commissioner of I’m-In-Charge-And-You-Can’t-Get-It-Unless-I-Say-So.
He’s just some guy who wants to feel important. He has the same job title as me and has the same qualifications as me. But he has created a position for himself which makes him feel good and makes my life a lot tougher. I’ve complained to my boss, his boss, to the High Commissioner himself but he’s firmly entrenched and it’s more than I can do to unseat him.
I could go on but you get my drift and if I get any more worked up thinking about it I’d have to take it to The Pit anyway.
Sorry if I offended any legitimate systems people out there. It’s just that I’ve had my fill of our illegitimate one.
Fair enough, pluto; I shot from the hip on that one, and I apologize for it.
I am, however, married to a woman who believes that the only reason anybody hires computer techs is to give them something to do besides stand in line for their free cheese. I do tend to be a little sensitive on the subject.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
Yeah, maybe I should have told you what browser I’m using. Can’t believe I fortgot that. Frustration, you know. It makes you careless.
I’m running Internet Explorer 5.0, Windows '98 on a Gateway Pentium III. Sorry about the omission.