I CAN'T sign out!

[Albion]

Dear Dawei,

 

  I CANNOT sign out. This has NEVER happened before tonight. Can you please help me, I don't wanna lose "my online home".

 

I've tried everything, and going to bed without signing out is probably totally a bad idea.

 

I don't know what to do. Can you help me?

 

Remember what I told you just the other day. You remember, right?

 

Thanks for any, and all help!   Differently Abled Daoist

[rene]

D.A.D., just fyi, I cant sign out either and it's okay; you wont lose anything. It's NOT an open door, if you know what I mean. Warm regards (-:

[liminal_luke]

I´ve never signed out on purpose in my whole life.  But that´s just me.

[Nungali]

We have ways of making you 'participate ' 

 

 

 

 

[doc benway]

If you clear your browser cache, you will be able to log out.

[flowing hands]

nop I can't sign out on either exp or google..... Someone needs to sort it!!!

[Marblehead]

nop I can't sign out on either exp or google..... Someone needs to sort it!!!

 

But we thought that this would help keep you around and posting.

 

You can check in but you can never leave.

[dawei]

I have to clear browser history every 3 of 4 log outs... many have stated the same and we have yet to find a remedy... other than to do the history clear. 

[flowing hands]

The hotel Dao bums

[dawei]

One thing I've never really confirmed is whether this is truly happening.. meaning, I have wondered if the person is actually logged out of the server but just simply appears locally on their PC as logged in.    I can likely use one of our guest accounts to confirm that.

[Marblehead]

One thing I've never really confirmed is whether this is truly happening.. meaning, I have wondered if the person is actually logged out of the server but just simply appears locally on their PC as logged in.    I can likely use one of our guest accounts to confirm that.

 

I think you are on to something there.  I think it might be the sub-routine that controls that part of the system being a little slow at making the changes and updates.

 

When I look at who is on-line I will sometimes look to see what certain members are viewing and oftentimes the status reads "off line" even though it indicates that they are on-line.

[Kar3n]

I am of the suspicion that it takes 15 minutes for the software to update and a person to be completely logged out in some cases, purely based on the system refresh of online users. I have never been able to replicate this, but I rarely log out; I just close tabs or shut my laptop.

 

 

95 users are online (in the past 15 minutes)

[Eques Peregrinus]

Short solution:

 

Delete the cookies in your broswer to log out.

 

 

Longer analysis:

 

I guessed it was bug in the session handling on the server side, so I made a few tests:

 

It seems that pressing the "Thank you" button or posting prohibit us from logging out.

 

Simply reading posts does not trigger that mechanism.

 

If we delete the cookies (thus ending the session browser-side) after posting or pressing the "Thank you" button, we are of course logged out (browser-side). But if we log in afterward we can no longer log out of the new session even if we touch nothing during this new session.

 

I wrote this post after pressing the "Sign Out" button.

 

 

The following observations were made:

 

The site registers 5 cookies at login:

session_id (128 bits integer)
coppa which (integer)
ipsconnect_[number] (integer)
pass_hash (128 bits integer)
member_id (integer)

 

By doind certain actions or under certain conditions, new cookiees are registered.

modtids (string)
mqtids (string)
rteStatus (string)

 

In a normal situation, member_id is set to 0 when logging out and some cookies are deleted.

 

None of their values change at the log out when the bug occures.

 

Removing the session_id and member_id cookies permit us to log out.

[Daeluin]

Interesting find. I wonder if it has something to do with Sean's changes in the code to make "Like" become "Thank you".

[thelerner]

Are there any implications in Not logging out?  Does it affect anything or really matter? 

 

Cause I never do, just close the window and go on my merry way.  And so far, so good .

[Eques Peregrinus]

Are there any implications in Not logging out?  Does it affect anything or really matter? 

 

Cause I never do, just close the window and go on my merry way.  And so far, so good .

 

Client-side, your browser will keep about 200 bytes to store the cookies. So it is really negligible.

 

Server-side, the framework used to run the forum needs to track the active sessions, so it will have more work to do.

I suppose that the statistics on the active users are also going to be wrong. If so, it might be possible to find accurately the moment where this problem began by checking if there is a sudden increase of active (registered) users.