SUMMARY:

Use Internet Explorer or another web browser instead of the 'internal' AOL browser when browsing vBulletin message boards. Even if you use AOL's internet service, you can still use Internet Explorer (or another browser of your choice).

From vBulletin's support site:

If AOL users have "Automatically remember my username and password" AND "Browse this board with cookies," they will not experience these problems.

If they do not have "Automatically remember my username and password" set, they will get logged out by vBulletin's session validation process. This is because they are actually getting logged in again and again by their cookie.

This only applies to AOL users who use AOL's internal browser. If they open up Internet Explorer or Netscape, they don't go through AOL's multi-homed proxy.

This applies to any user who's accessing the site through a multi-homed proxy server. This includes WebTV users, many users accessing vBulletin sites from work, and users accessing vBulletin from educational institutions who use this technology.

I think it's fair to say that the majority of vBulletin users have their options set to save their username and password in a cookie. Those that don't and meet the conditions above are going to have problems.

Chances are the majority of those reporting no problems have users who have their settings set to remember username/password with a cookie.

This problem exists. One look at the code and you'll see why. vBulletin simply wasn't designed to remember sessions across IP addresses.

In other words, make EVERYONE's life easier and TOSS AOL OUT THE DAMN WINDOW. Surely to God there's no one out there who is FORCED to use such a ridiculous joke of a service.

:tongueout

Paolo wrote: Fri Dec 27, 2002 4:37 pm In other words, make EVERYONE's life easier and TOSS AOL OUT THE DAMN WINDOW. Surely to God there's no one out there who is FORCED to use such a ridiculous joke of a service.

I am not forced to use AOL, but I do value the access to certain AOL features and forums, and especially AAOnLine, the chat room for alcoholics like me (18 years sober). I use AOL 5.0, and I think I have enabled cookies and whatever else I should.

My ONLY problem is the poll on the landing page, it still won't let me vote, insisting I've already voted. But access to the message board and the chat room (via apric) has been no problem.

Even on the the vBulletin site there is no consensus of the problem. Some site administrators say they have no reports of trouble with AOL users, some say that it happens all the time.

I have upgrades to the latest version, 2.2.9 - whether this will have any effect on the problem is unknown.

The next vBulletin upgrade will be 3.0, sometime first quarter 2003 and is a major overhaul of the vBulletin software.

Bboy wrote: Sat Dec 28, 2002 9:10 am Even on the the vBulletin site there is no consensus of the problem. Some site administrators say they have no reports of trouble with AOL users, some say that it happens all the time.

I have upgrades to the latest version, 2.2.9 - whether this will have any effect on the problem is unknown.

The next vBulletin upgrade will be 3.0, sometime first quarter 2003 and is a major overhaul of the vBulletin software.

Which, as usual, will fix many of the old bugs and introduce a whole new batch of new ones.



I wonder what Talula thinks of all this?

Andrew,

It has been my experience that many peaces of software only work so long then you must upgrade, it is unfortunate but I have had some wonderful experiences in the work place where people were still running IE 3.0. What happens is that other software that uses the connection peaces that you are using are upgrading there software in the background, stuff you will not even see. At some point in time your stuff will just stop working. You said you were using AOL 5.0, I think they just released 8.0. don’t get to many releases behind or you may find that all of a sudden nothing works. Keep this in mind and if it happens you will know what to do.

When you going to get off AOL? There are others, some are even cheaper. You mentions a chat room for AA, what is there address and let me see if I can get in there. If not there are chat rooms outside of AOL.

But do think about upgrading your system software if you can, make sure you check hardware requirements first.

River

AOL

AOL version 8.0 works much better than version 7.0. I recomment that any AOL user, whose system will support it, should upgrade to version 8.0 for the best results.

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2002 8:15 am When you going to get off AOL? There are others, some are even cheaper. You mentions a chat room for AA, what is there address and let me see if I can get in there. If not there are chat rooms outside of AOL.

Yes, but the chat room I am rferring to is known as "AAOnLine" and is accessable only via AOL. I have many friends in that room, many known over several years.

Yes, there are THOUSANDS of other chat rooms, message boards, and other forums for alcoholics. But right now I am happy with this one.

Also, because AOL allows me seven screen names, I have family members in Seattle (Mother) and Colorado Sprinds (cousin) who get to use AOL free.

Having said that, I acknowledge that the time may come when I have to abandon AOL, or upgrade. But not right now.