"Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

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EA117
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"Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by EA117 »

I can't begin to imagine what the root cause of the issue must be, that I'm not seeing an existing thread or other users posting about this.

Specifically within the last week or ten days, suddenly when I navigate through https://www.phpbb.com/community/ forums, the "Remember Me" and/or fact that I'm already logged in for the current browser session just fails over and over again.

Meaning, I shutdown everything and then open a new clean browser session, and navigate to https://www.phpbb.com/community/. I'm not already logged on, which is odd since I selected "Remember me" during the last login I performed, but whatever. I can login successfully using my account credentials, and select "Remember me" for the current login again.

That gets me to the forum summary page, and it's showing the correct read/unread information because I'm now logged in. But if I click on one of the forums, like 3.2.x support, the forum comes up, but "I'm in logged-out state again." Meaning the "Login" link is back, and if I want to see read/unread flagging, I have to login yet again. And the login works; but I had to do it again.

The bad part comes when I'm trying to reply. Simply reading a specific message may again return me to the logged-out state, and I have to login yet again. The real problem is that when I go to submit a reply, and instead of submitting (or even previewing), I'm asked to login again, and the message I was working on is lost once I successfully provide credentials. That's going to happen to me even as I'm writing this message, and I have to simply try again and again and eventually the submit works without prompting for re-login.

Yep. I know what you're thinking. Here is what hasn't solved the problem:
  • Using the phpBB-provided link "Delete cookies", and then shutting down all browser sessions and trying again.
  • Using the phpBB-provided explicit "Logout" link, then "Delete cookies", then shutting down all browser sessions and trying again.
  • Using the Google Chrome 69.0.3497.100 (Official Build) (64-bit) (Windows 10) option to delete all cookies for the site, then shutting down all browser sessions and trying again.
  • Using Microsoft Edge 42.17134.1.0, which I've never used on phpBB.com before to have any existing cookies or history, but I still see the same behavior in that browser too.
  • Remote Desktop into a machine at work, which is using a different ISP, different installation of Chrome, different anti-virus, etc., but I still see the same behavior on that machine in that browser, too.
  • Time on all tested machines is in sync with NIST NTP sources.
  • All tested machines have been rebooted multiple times as part of normal use, but the issue continues to occur.
  • The "Remember me" option for MY OWN phpBB site (3.2.2) remains working as expected. The "Remember me" for other third-party phpBB sites I frequent remain working as expected. Only the https://www.phpbb.com/community/ site is presenting me with this issue right now.
So that makes me want to think, did phpBB.com/community change something in cookie settings, or maybe the update to 3.2.3? But if that were the case, I would be expecting the issue to affect multiple people and be a topic of discussion. Maybe I'm just missing it.

Otherwise I'm left to assume it's somehow unique to my specific phpBB.com/community login account, in a way that allows the issue to persist across multiple browser vendors, multiple cookie re-creations, and multiple machines.

I guess if no one else is having the issue, the next step is for me to try abandoning this account and creating a new one. If anyone knows how to debug the phpBB cookie usage that would be appreciated too, but it will have to be "from my end" since I'm not seeing this issue on any board except https://www.phpbb.com/community/, and I won't have admin access to the server for any troubleshooting steps.
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by Kailey »

Can you post a ticket to the Website Tracker please?
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david63
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by david63 »

Not sure if it is related but over the last few days I have been having some random logouts when on this board, but as I am using a poor connection at the moment I put it down to that.
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by GanstaZ »

Same here, so it's not poor connection. I thought it may be a new version of ff, but seems it's not the case, because area51 is working without any problems. Maybe multiple open forums/topics are behind session disconnects, i remember someone posted about this not so long ago.
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</Solidjeuh>
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by </Solidjeuh> »

I had almost the same problem, and it was just on this forum.
Was writing a message, clicked on "Submit", and the forum logged me out..
Happened for 2 weeks every single time. Then it just solved itself somehow. :?
And changed nothing... problem just vanished

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2482891#p15073506
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EA117
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by EA117 »

Thanks for the input, David. Definitely no slow or intermittent access issues occurring here, for what it's worth.

Issue created as https://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/WEBSITE-1356 .

When I made my first login to JIRA, the prompt to update from UTC to my local time zone for the JIRA account made me go look at my phpbb.com/community profile's time zone setting more closely. I had "America/Belize" set, which gives me the UTC-6 I intended. But I went ahead and changed to "America/Chicago", which is still UTC-6 but perhaps with a more appropriate DST. And then I did the phpBB "Delete cookies", the Chrome delete cookies, closed all browser sessions, etc.

(Don't get me started on why the time zone list thinks it can name random cities without even a state name qualifier, and think that anyone will know whether or not this random city is in the same time zone or DST rules as they are.)

But the issue still remains once I re-login with "Remember me"; as I navigate through the forum, I'm just randomly logged out again and again. I added this additional time zone test information to the web ticket.
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Mick
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by Mick »

No problem with connection here but I have always had random log outs on mobile devices, mainly an iPad. I rarely use them for phpBB stuff so I never followed it up.
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

I just had the same issue and it has been happening a lot lately.
I do not use nor own a phone or tablet so it is happening using current ff and up to date desktop etc.
no changes to my system lately that would affect this etc.


robert
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by canonknipser »

Happens quite often for me too, different browsers, different devices, different connections
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EA117
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by EA117 »

EA117 wrote: Tue Oct 02, 2018 1:48 pm Issue created as https://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/WEBSITE-1356
If this issue continues to pique anyone else's interest, also check out the comment just added to the WEBSITE-1356 report. On a machine where I was able to record the screen, the "unexpected logout" also happened to occur on that machine at a regular ~120-second cadence. Which unfortunately is not consistent with what I observe on other machines where I demonstrate this same issue; but was interesting to see nonetheless.
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

yep, just now when I was logged in and clicked on this topic I was logged out when I got here.

robert
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</Solidjeuh>
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by </Solidjeuh> »

So it's a bug on this forum.
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janus_zonstraal
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by janus_zonstraal »

Same problem here, logged out every time I submit a message.
With different browsers (FF and Chrome)
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Mick
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by Mick »

EA117 wrote: Tue Oct 02, 2018 6:29 pmcheck out the comment
Good reporting👍🏼
  • "The more connected we get the more alone we become" - Kyle Broflovski©
  • "The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination.
    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
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EA117
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Re: "Remember Me" login on https://www.phpbb.com/community/

Post by EA117 »

</Solidjeuh> wrote: Tue Oct 02, 2018 1:36 pm Happened for 2 weeks every single time. Then it just solved itself somehow. :?
And changed nothing... problem just vanished
Issue was conspicuously absent for me today on my production machine, after a week-plus of constant duplication. Have yet to see the issue occur again on the machine where I was encountering it most frequently.

So I went to the machine which was showing the unique "every 120 seconds" behavior, and I have a 0% duplication success there so far today, too. I'm posting from that machine now, and it has stayed logged on exactly as you would expect.

Not ready to jump to any conclusions or make an update to the website report yet, and will just have to keep watching. But if nothing changed on phpbb.com itself, I wonder if this isn't an issue in a load balancer that is sitting in front of phpbb.com or similar.

Maybe someone just remembered to reboot it. 😉
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