Forum bug with Mozilla Firefox?

timcrews · Post #1by **timcrews** » 26.08.2004, 16:17

Hello:

A month or so ago, I switched from Internet Explorer to Moizilla Firefox version 0.9.2.

I am a daily browser of the shatters.net forums. Over a period of a year or more, I never observed the following problem under Internet Explorer.

While using Firefox, every once in a while, I browse the shatters.net forum index and notice that none of the forums are marked with new messages. I look down at the list of logged in users, and don't see my login ID listed, even though I have always used the automatic log-in feature. I enter my login ID and password, and check the box saying "log in automatically". I am successfully logged in, but _still_ none of the forums shows any new messages.

I think this is happening about once a week, although I haven't kept track of the occurrences other than mentally.

Tim Crews

Post #2by **selden** » 26.08.2004, 18:00

Are you running one or more of the spyware removal tools like AdAware or SpyBot Search & Destroy?

I'm using Firefox v0.9.3 (which has some more security holes patched). What you describe has happened to me a couple of times, but always it has been after I did a cleanup of cookies and cached Web pages. The Forum software uses cookies to keep track of who you are and what you've seen.

timcrews · Post #3by **timcrews** » 26.08.2004, 19:51

Hi Selden

No, I am not using any such utilities.

I currently have two cookies that appear to come from shatters.net. They are both named phpbb2mysql_data. When I view details on both of those cookies, one of them is from the domain ".shatters.net" (note the leading dot), and expires tomorrow morning. The other, from domain "shatters.net" (no leading dot) expires on October 16.

I wonder if cookie expiration is related to the problem? Perhaps my next wipeout will occur on October 16.

Tim

Bob Hegwood · Post #4by **Bob Hegwood** » 26.08.2004, 21:54

selden wrote:Are you running one or more of the spyware removal tools like AdAware or SpyBot Search & Destroy?

I'm using Firefox v0.9.3 (which has some more security holes patched). What you describe has happened to me a couple of times, but always it has been after I did a cleanup of cookies and cached Web pages.

Selden,

I run Spybot, AdAware AND use Earthlink's automatic cookie killer, and
I have *never* had this problem. Just thought I'd add to the information
pool here.

Thanks, Bob

Harry · Post #5by **Harry** » 26.08.2004, 23:27

Older Mozilla/Firefox limited the number of cookies which are allowed to be stored on your system to 300. If you visit sites which together set more than 300 cookies the shatters.net cookie will be deleted. Not very smart.
Fairly recent versions (after April) should use a limit of 1000(?), but this may still be too low. See here:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213963
http://q.queso.com/archives/001402

Firefox isn't perfect either

Added later: maybe accessing the site once as shatters.net and then as http://www.shatters.net can lead to problems with the cookies too?

Harald

timcrews · Post #6by **timcrews** » 27.08.2004, 01:43

Harald:

My FireFox version is more recent than April. I followed your link to the bug report, and I cannot tell how the versions that they report as fixed correspond to FireFox version numbers.

At any rate, I only have about 100 cookies, total. I allow very few web sites to store cookies.

Following up on your distinction between shatters.net and http://www.shatters.net, I notice that I have cookies for both. The cookies I listed in my second post are for shatters.net. I have more cookies for http://www.shatters.net.

The only way I ever navigate to the forum is through a bookmark, which is set to http://www.shatters.net. Your theory sounds testable, and I will give it a try, but I'm trying to envision when I have ever used anything other than my single bookmark to get to the forum. I don't think I have.

Thanks,

Tim

Guest · Post #7by **Guest** » 30.12.2004, 14:42

timcrews wrote:Hi Selden

No, I am not using any such utilities.

I currently have two cookies that appear to come from shatters.net. They are both named phpbb2mysql_data. When I view details on both of those cookies, one of them is from the domain ".shatters.net" (note the leading dot), and expires tomorrow morning. The other, from domain "shatters.net" (no leading dot) expires on October 16.

I wonder if cookie expiration is related to the problem? Perhaps my next wipeout will occur on October 16.

Tim

Bob Hegwood · Post #8by **Bob Hegwood** » 30.12.2004, 16:38

Tim,

I'm using Firefox 1.0 and have my bookmark address set to:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/index.php

Maybe that helps? Also, Firefox still has a few bugs of its own. Even though
I have set my profile up so that I'm logged in automatically, sometimes it
works, and sometimes it doesn't. I am not deleting my Shatters Net cookies
either, and I have a grand total of only 8 allowed cookies on my machine.

Just trying to help.

Take care, Bob

cpotting · Post #9by **cpotting** » 31.12.2004, 17:15

I am using Firefox 1.0 at home and have not had this problem. However, at work, we are forced to use IE and I have had this problem several times. I have not been monitoring cookies, but I will keep an eye out for that in the future to see if it is related.

At any rate, I just thought I'd let you know that it isn't a problem with Firefox - Mickeysoft IE has the problem too - whatever it is.

Harry · Post #10by **Harry** » 12.01.2005, 19:14

I recently made an observation that may explain some problems people had with the forum:

If you are using "www.shatters.net" as hostname and you are looking at e.g. the list of new posts ("View posts since last visit"), and then click on the "view newest post" icon (arrow with a sheet of paper) in the topic column, then the forum software will redirect your browser from http://www.shatters.net to shatters.net, and thus will no longer recognize your login. I assume the easiest way to work around this problem is to only use "shatters.net" in the URL...

Harald

Bob Hegwood · Post #11by **Bob Hegwood** » 12.01.2005, 21:06

Harry wrote:I assume the easiest way to work around this problem is to only use "shatters.net" in the URL...

Can confirm this, Harry...

Funny, I did this prior to reading your message, but it does seem to work.

First, I tried using only http://www.shatters.net, then I tried using only shatters.net.

The latter works just fine now.

EDIT: Well, it did work fine for a day or two... Now, I've had to add
the cookies for http://www.shatters.net once again in order to get the new posts
displays shown. This is a weird problem.

Thanks, Bob

Bob Hegwood · Post #12by **Bob Hegwood** » 29.01.2005, 14:42

Okay,

This is the final word when using Firefox to sign on to the Celestia Users
Group Forum automatically.

Allow cookies from both http://www.shatters.net AND shatters.net

Please note the exact spelling and cases of the cookie sites to be
allowed.

Also, simply NEVER log out of the forum when you're finished. Either
close your browser window, or go to your next web site.

I've been doing this for about 5 days now, and I am always logged
into the Forum automatically now.

Just thought you might like to know.

Take care, Bob

Casta · Post #13by **Casta** » 02.02.2005, 21:55

I have FF v.1 and Spybot. I have no issues with this forum or the program. I just installed Celestia last night after i stumbled onto it while surfing. Pretty cool stuff. It will help IMMENSELY as I write my book. No more wasted hours of searching the net for names and facts about bodies.