Well, let’s look at this logically, and see whether we can figure something out. I believe it was Sherlock Holmes who said, “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Now, when you open the SDMB site, just like when you open other sites where you log in, there is almost always some form or version of a “remember me” check box. When you check that box, a cookie file is stored on your machine that that site can read the next time you visit, and go “Oh, yeah. This is Roddy, and he’s okay to get in.”
Reasoning from the general to the particular (deductive reasoning), we should be able to ascertain at least the most common causes that your cookie files on two different machines with two different browsers for this site aren’t working properly, while also accomodating the fact that another user once experienced a similar (but not necessarily the same) problem recently.
First, let’s deal with the issue of two different browsers. There are some features that are unique to some browsers. For example, there might be plugins available for Firefox that are not available for IE, and vice-versa. There might be a difference between how tabbing is handled, or how favorites and bookmarks are stored.
But cookies are handled essentially the same way by all browsers because they are written onto your machine by the remote server, and it is the remote server that reads them. Now, there might be differences in how the cookies are accessed by the different browsers or how they are cleared. But there is no difference in the functionality of a cookie from one browser to the next.
Except…
There are settings in some browsers that limit how remote servers can use cookies, even to the extent of whether they can write them or not. There are also security settings (in IE8, for example) that prevent nefarious cookies — like those planted by Google Analytics — from following you around from site to site, gathering and reporting information on your Internet usage. There are typically settings in all browsers that can disallow altogether the writing of cookies (which would interfere or even in some cases prevent your interaction with certain websites). And there are settings that do everything from force cookies to expire sooner than they’d like, to settings that automatically delete all cookies when the browser is closed. (My own IE8 is set that way.) In fact, IE8 allows for “In Private” browsing which (allegedly) stores nothing on your computer about any of your site visits, including cookies and temporary files.
But it is important to ask the question (since we’re reasoning from the general) whether there is any mechanism besides cookies by which the SDMB in particluar can recognize you as a user. And the answer is simply no. Therefore, it is the cookies which must be examined.
While it may seem like an odd coincidence that you are having the same problem on two computers with two different browsers, it need not be such a surprising thing at all, given that almost all browsers have some control over security settings and the handling of cookies. You mention the anal retentive security in place at your work, and so it would not be at all surprising if security settings were high (which would possibly interfere with a server attempting to read or write a cookie). Meanwhile, your home computer could be set at a similar level of security, even though it is a different browser. (Examine carefully whether someone besides yourself might even have changed a setting, or whether you did so absentmindedly and don’t even recall it.)
Since there is no other way for the SDMB to recognize you other than cookies, and keeping in mind Sherlock Holmes’s wise observation, we are forced to assume that it is indeed a cookie issue both at your work and at home. Now, is it possible that the problem is with the SDMB attempting to read and write cookies even though your security settings allow it to do so? Well, yes. It is possible. It is possible that, from time to time, the SDMB server plants a corrupted cookie or a cookie that expires moments after it is written. After all, it is the software used by the SDMB that determines when cookies expire. And so it could be a bug on the SDMB side, especially since it uses php — a primitive and inflexible language. (Please, onlookers, hold your sneers and righteous indignation, lest I hurl Dot Net at you.)
And so, I think we can safely conclude that the problem, whatever it might be, involves cookies. It has to. The impossible has been eliminated, and all that remains is the fact that the SDMB does not recognize you (meaning it cannot read your cookie) when you open the page. And that’s that.
