you seem to use a different site then…. on gtru a cookie is valid for 6 hours

My login expires much more frequently than every 6 hours as well, more like every 2 hours or so.  Although, I'm relieved to be reading now that this is being done as a security feature, because for a long time I thought it was some sort of glitch.

i dont get any messages. the interface just changes to the unauthorized version.
what is weird is the fact that it still keeps the current page contents active. ie, i can still post on the active forum, download the currently open torrent etc. everything else, however, gets broken: eg, i cant go back to the search results, use top navigation bar etc. then i have to deliberately click on login to get to the dialog and get back in. losing all the session context in the process.

best to select all your text, then copy it (to the paste buffer) before hitting the post button, just in case the site decided to log you out, while you were in the process of composing your well-thought-out composition…

I know from painful experience.... just how totally frustrating it is to lose ALL you've written... especially if it's been a heartfelt creative composition... all trashed.  :crazy2:

Alternatively, you can log off, then log back in, before starting your composition... just to be safe (if you're likely to forget to select and copy your work before posting it... like me)  :blink:

But to interact with the topics... you have to log in.

Similarly, there can be a portion of a torrent presentation page that can be seen too, without being logged in, such as what might occur as a result of a general Google search.

But navigation, beyond this partial view, is inoperable, without logging in.

This is all on purpose, by site coding and design; it's not a flaw.  ^-^

I sometimes get the message but unless I have closed my browser I am still logged in (assuming I haven't logged out). I just ignore the message to log in and carry on regardless.

p.p.s. there seems to be an independent forum counter routine somewhere. it currently shows this even though i was kicked out and forced to logon in between my two posts:

anyone got a copy of the old cookie without a timeout they'd like to share?

honestly? Is it such a big issue?

It looks he had all the time still the 'old' cookie in the browser stored, which had no expiry time of 6 hours. Changing the OS, made the cookie lost and replaced by a new, which expires.

I can confirm this theory.

In my case, I didn't even change browsers.  I just cleared cookies because I was dealing with an unrelated problem.  Then after that, my login sessions started timing out, whereas before, I hadn't done an explicit login from that browser for months if not years.

The former IT trainer in me however feels the need to impart some generalised 'good practise': as most modern browsers have the ability to remember usernames and passwords for sites you should turn this feature off or never allow it to remember them when the computers' active user login is shared between multiple users of that computer

Funny how I only started having this issue now.  I recently upgraded my computer to windows 8 and it is now always asking me to login every time, whereas before upgrading, I never had this issue!

I'm not sure how that is even possible given my knowledge of the way that the system is setup. That is strange indeed.

Our sysop made this change when he felt we needed to be periodically logged out, and needed to periodically log back in, as an extra measure of security, protecting both you, and the site.

On my browser, I just double-click in the "User Name" field, and since I've saved the member name / password on my browser in the past, it just goes ahead and fills in my member name and password automatically.

So basically, we're talking about... one click on the "Login" heading, then a double mouse click in the Member name field... and a single mouse click on the "Log in!" button (and the occasional captcha) and you're logged back in...

As we're fond of pointing out... even staff moderators have to go through this identity confirmation, so please don't feel like you're being singled out...

Does your browser support the auto-fill-in of the member name and password, when double-clicking on the member name field?

I generally use the "Pale Moon" browser (a free and open-source web browser based on Mozilla Firefox) since it's far less bloated and faster than Chrome...

Take care,
Pawpcorn
GTRU Staff