I often encounter a situation where I am logged in (my userid is in the "Logged in user" field at the top of this form, and the box at the bottom says I can post) and entering a message, but, when I try to submit it, I get a message saying I am not logged in and giving me a login screen, so I then enter my userid and password, and then I see a message to the effect that no thread was specified.

I wonder the no-thread message might be caused by a bug that vBulletin should know about, but it seems to me that the not-logged-in message might be caused by my login status timing out while I am composing the message. (I say this, because, if I enter a short message, just after I have logged in, I have no problem.)

So, here are my questions:

(1) Is there a timeout of login status? If so, can that be lengthened?

(2) Can the vBulletin developers come up with some way to recover more gracefully from the situation I have described?

Thanks,

peter

P.S. It just happened to me again:

1. I logged in.

2. I entered a reply in this forum (in the thread about the contents of the profile). While I was doing that, my screen indicated that I was logged in.

3. I pressed Preview and and was successful.

4. I edited the message a bit more.

5. I pressed Submit and got the not-logged-in message.

6. I pressed the Back button a few times, so I could copy my message to the clipboard.

7. I went directly to "user cp" and logged in.

8. I got back into message reply mode, pasted the message, and pressed Submit. This time, I was successful.

9. I entered New Thread mode to enter the message you are now reading. It did not take all that long to enter.

10. I pressed Submit and got the not-logged in message.

11. I repeated the above procedure to re-enter the message. That is where I am now. I have no idea what will happen when I push the Submit button.

Something is wrong here. Is it a configuration problem, a vBulletin bug, or a vBulletin usability issue? I do not know. Has anyone else had this problem?

I forgot to mention, I have cookies turned off.

You're the first person to report this problem. Go to your options in the User CP screen and try turning your cookies on and see if this helps. I believe the line is BROWSE THE BOARDS WITH COOKIES. I realize that this could be a problem for some users where others are allowed to continue to live after touching your PC, as you don't want prying eyes or little fingers automatically seeing you logged in! Also, while you're in your USER CP, read the prefs and option, in profiles as well, very carefully and see if there's anything you might want that might not be on. You shouldn't be getting timed out within a few minutes though, but I think the cookies will solve this. OH, and are you certain that your browser didn't leave EA totally during this? I think that going to another page in the same window and pressing BACK will log you out.

Hello Petersjc,

Well, you have just put to paper the same thing I experience in posting to the Boards as well. I login, and start reading the postings for the day, pick one to reply to, and put my comments in the right location.....check the spelling, and try to resubmit the item, and the whole thing locks up on me. I receive the notice that I'm not logged in, and that I have tried to enter a forbidden zone.

Dear Paolo,

I tried to use the information you presented to this problem, but in the fact I have cookies turned ON, it somehow is not applying in total. Is there something else I can do to get this to work correctly???

With my IE6 problems (which is the subject of a different posting earlier in this month), and with the occassional difficulty of being denied access to the areas that a few seconds prior, I was using without hassles, there must be something to the system that has affected my pc in this way. Anyone else having difficulties here as well?????

Love ya!!

Marc:)

I'm not touching the issue of IE6. No comment.

As for different browsers, I do know that all versions of Netscape 4.7x did NOT get along with the old boards at all. One single byte of data missing, and Netscape can't open a page. Go into your browser's preferences, and make sure that cookies are enabled there as well. I know a lot of people don't like them, but a board like this is VERY cookie dependent. It's possible that the browser is doing this to you. Look for cookies and turn them on. Decrease your security level by one stop. And if you dont' have one, get a firewall of some kind, like ZoneAlarm from Download.com. It's free.

I have made some changes that I *hope* will solve the problem. Please use the board and try to duplicate the situation that caused the issue in the first place.

Let me know

Bboy wrote: Fri Dec 28, 2001 7:32 am I have made some changes that I *hope* will solve the problem. Please use the board and try to duplicate the situation that caused the issue in the first place.

Let me know

Bryan, I am sorry to report that these did not solve my problem. I can sometimes work around it by pressing the Quote button, instead of Post Reply, because Quote immediately tells me if vBulletin thinks I am not logged in. However, even then, my logged-in status often goes away while I am composing my reply (10-30 minutes).

I re-checked my options and found that I have always had cookies enabled. The automatic-login feature is disabled.

peter