Member having trouble logging in!

[WizyWyg]

Nope, its not a vbulletin problem with creating cookies.

Its aol. Please confirm with that person loggin on that she is connecting via DIFFERENT ISP's while on different computers. You need to make sure you find out everything before assuming that its the software.


Cookies are usually a Browser problem; and onece a cookie is corrupted, Through IE you have to manually delete them.

[Scott MacVicar]

In regards to vBulletin and your though of vBulletin sending cookies incorrectly, the cookies are sent using the setcookie function in php, they are basically sent as a header before any other information is sent.

Different browsers handle them differently, so this is when the issues occur. In this case the AOL browser is unreliable, suggest to your members to download Mozilla and try that, you will find that it will work after that.

Make sure they are browsing with cookies though.

[doubletroublevb]

similar problem

I have a user who basically can only get in occasionally. He has AOL 6 and is using the IE6 browser. I can log in as him without any problem from NT and also from AOL 5.0. I've asked him to clear his cookies & he's said he has. This is a new board with just 16 members so I can't really say how bad t his problem is.

I have 2.2.6 with php 4.03 and a version of mysql that escapes me.

[WizyWyg]

Clearing his cookies doesnt mean go through it using his browser. He needs to physically go into c:/Windows/Cookies and highlight and delete it off their computer.

[Paul]

Originally posted by PPN
In regards to vBulletin and your though of vBulletin sending cookies incorrectly, the cookies are sent using the setcookie function in php, they are basically sent as a header before any other information is sent.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I thought this was what the culprit was. I was only throwing it out there as a possible cause.

Originally posted by WizyWyg
Its aol. Please confirm with that person loggin on that she is connecting via DIFFERENT ISP's while on different computers. You need to make sure you find out everything before assuming that its the software.

Please re-read:

Originally posted by LoveShack
I do not know for a fact if she was using AOL on all of those machines, but it did make the idea of a corrupted cookie seem a little far fetched.

I do not know what's to blame. I wouldn't even go as far as suggesting that AOL is the culprit--it's far too large an ISP with an overwhelmingly similar subscriber base in terms of computer experience. If this were a problem with AOL users, we'd be seeing this a lot more. Many users on my site use AOL and do not have this problem. Of course, I do not know what version of AOL they are using from nor what browser is included with their particular version, or if they've chosen to download a third-party browser and use it on their AOL connection.

Originally posted by WizyWyg
Clearing his cookies doesnt mean go through it using his browser. He needs to physically go into c:/Windows/Cookies and highlight and delete it off their computer.

Clearing cookies through the browser won't delete them of the disk? Is this for a specific version of Windows? In Windows NT 5.X (2000/XP) using IE 6, the cookie files (cookie:<user>@<sitename>.txt) are deleted when Tools > Internet Options.. > Delete cookies... is selected. As far as I can recall, this was the behavior in IE 5.x as well. Perhaps you're thinking of the index.dat file, which can only be deleted by logging on as another user?

Paul

[doubletroublevb]

My user says he has tried different ways of doing it and in the last attempt did through windows.

One thing I did notice is that a ghost entry comes up when he can't post. First he gets an entry for himself (in who's online) and then he gets one at the same IP as a Guest. The guest entry is the one that's trying to post etc.

I tried putting in the necessary information for cookies and suddenly discovered that I could not log out so I took it out again.

[Mike Sullivan]

Have anyone with this problem hit this script about 5 times in a fairly short time period, without reconnecting. I didn't set it to log anything, so I need them to copy the output each time.

I believe AOL is using a proxy so it's IP will be changing each time, so the user won't be able to keep the same session.

[Paul]

Originally posted by Ed Sullivan
I believe AOL is using a proxy so it's IP will be changing each time, so the user won't be able to keep the same session.

AOL clients do in fact connect ONLY via proxy. I've never seen an AOL client that wasn't going through a cache server. Usually there are about 15-20 of them on the site at once... (cache-1.something.aol.com--this isn't the actual address, just one I'm making up). They all start with "cache" though.. quite different from the <string>.ipt.aol.com that are normally seen in other client-server applications, most notably, IRC.

Their web traffic is going through these cache servers and more than one connect to the site. Is the session being stored only via IP address? I guess when there aren't cookies the session hash in the url disappears, huh?

Paul

[WizyWyg]

Originally posted by LoveShack


Please re-read:
I do not know what's to blame. I wouldn't even go as far as suggesting that AOL is the culprit--it's far too large an ISP with an overwhelmingly similar subscriber base in terms of computer experience. If this were a problem with AOL users, we'd be seeing this a lot more. Many users on my site use AOL and do not have this problem. Of course, I do not know what version of AOL they are using from nor what browser is included with their particular version, or if they've chosen to download a third-party browser and use it on their AOL connection.

Actually, you do have it backwards on this thinking. Because of the way AOL runs (or similar CompuServe) they serve all their members through a proxy server (much like Local isp's do with their customers, but on a bigger scale). Since members need to go through their proxies, you can run into A LOT of problems concerning them. I've seen problems with proxy servers out of school systems, govt bodies because they are either poorly setup or there are just problems with the programs

However, in your case, there could be a ton of reasons why your members are experiencing what they are.

AOL does cause a lot of problems for their users because of the way they are set-up. Remember, you could be dialing in from New York, but their proxy for that user is set up in Delaware.

My sister works for AOL and i've had her test everything on my board that I run from her place of work as well as her connection from home. Since she moved up to Broadband AOL , she doesn't experience half the problems she used when she was just on their normal dial-up plans.

Clearing cookies through the browser won't delete them of the disk? Is this for a specific version of Windows? In Windows NT 5.X (2000/XP) using IE 6, the cookie files (cookie:<user>@<sitename>.txt) are deleted when Tools > Internet Options.. > Delete cookies... is selected. As far as I can recall, this was the behavior in IE 5.x as well. Perhaps you're thinking of the index.dat file, which can only be deleted by logging on as another user?

Paul

No you can clear cookeis through the browser, just that if its a CORRUPTED cookie, you can only delete them manually. No matter how many times you try to clear it through the browser, the cookie will remain behind on your system.

actually when I used to peer teach for INtro to the WWW, I always spent a day with my class to explain cookies and how to manage them. I never taught them to clear cookies through their browser, and only showed them manually how to delete them. That way, no problems.

[Palmer ofShinra]

AOL treats IPs very funny... but then again, it's AOL...

I've seen users who were logged in have their IP change over time, without any disconnection on their end...

Sometimes as fast as every 5 minutes, sometimes hours...

Another interesting fact is that AOL does NOT have enough IP addresses for it's subscriber base...

This is info I learned from another forum admin who used to work for AOL...

They sometimes are running as many as FIFTY seperate end-users off a single IP address at a time.

As I believe I mentioned somewhere... version seems irrelevant...

One member is still on AOL 5 and has had this problem, while others are on 6 and most are 7 or 8.

Most use IE directly, rather than the AOL browser itself.
Most of our users ARE technically proficient... so it's not end-user stupidity.

The part that strikes me as most curious is that the problem seemed to crop up, suddenly, and accross the board...

I was goign o come here and ask about it, only to find other people posting that they had the same problem... and not only that...

It started at the same time

We're on different vB versions, some of us are hacked and others not... but we're all having the same problem, starting around the same time...

And with the same ISP.

What does that tell you?

[bill-t]

I have this problem on new board, no users are using aol... doesn't matter what browser is used, some accounts have the problem, some don't... i can go fine for awhile, then boom, have to log in everytime i switch pages... one of my users is brand new, signed in for first time a few min ago, had the same issue... this is a brand new, 2.6 board... not even fully open yet, was going to go live today... problem is not cookies or cache on local machine lives on home machine and work machine using all 4 of the browsers I use... even after i kill cookies, cache, history and even a reinstall of opera just to be sure (after deleting from hd)... it's account related... ideas? (all connections were either accross t1 or cable)

[irc]

I'm having this problem with some users, both AOL browsers and IE 5.5 (maybe other versions). Can someone give me some simple, hand-holding instructions for how to manually delete cookies for each of these contingencies?

[Steve Machol]

I'm not sure about AOL or IE 5.5, but here's how to do this in IE 6.0:

Tools -> Internet Options -> Temporary Internet Files -> Settings -> View Files

Then search for the individual cookies for your domain and delete them all. The name should be in the form of:

Cookie:[email protected]
and
Cookie:username@www.yoursite.com

...and any derivatives of the above. Then highlight the individual cookies and delete each one found. After this, close all browser windows and restart IE.

[Paul]

Reformatting one's hard disk and reinstalling Windows should have the same results

[savingc]

Reformatting one's hard disk and reinstalling Windows should have the same results

I am having the same problems and I am not an AOL user. I have tried to login from home and work and it does not work any account but admin.