You were unable to login. Please check your cookie settings.

[Tyrsson]

Hi,

Yes I tried every combination of settings without success.

This might help diagnose the problem:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=173730.msg1192825#msg1192825
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=353822.msg2408460#msg2408460
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=325349.msg2167473#msg2167473

These seem to relate to the issue I'm having. In one of the threads they talk about the .HTACCESS file.. Not sure if that's of any relevance?

Also, does anyone know how I can save the phpinfo file? I know I have to upload it to my server where I can view it.. But apparently I can't just save it as a webpage and upload it (I tried before and someone said it wasn't in the correct format :/ ). Not sure if that will help either but just throwing suggestions out there at this point.

Just a note, you have already posted a phpinfo file once... Here is the thread its attached too.

Strange occurrence while using the package manager [Installation problem/issue]

[Jack_40k]

Yeah but that file doesn't open properly does it?

Also, I'll have a fiddle with the server and upload the non-working SMF edition to the live server to test if it really is a server issue.
Also thinking about upgrading PHP etc.. to latest versions (although latest versions aren't compatible with Fedora 7? so have to upgrade that too..)

I did also notice that when I did the upgrade from 1.1.8 to 2.0 RC3, there were some issues with some files needing to be manually edited or something..? Didn't notice it until I did another test upgrade recently (will check that out and verify it doesn't effect error).

notes: - Yes I cleared my browsing history (using CCleaner) after each settings change.
- If by a LAMP package you mean MySql, PHP and Apache then of course I have these installed on the server.. It wouldn't work otherwise?

[Jack_40k]

When upgrading from 1.1.8 to 2.0 RC3, there is some issue with upgrading templates:

There have been numerous language and template changes since the previous version of SMF. On this step the upgrader can attempt to automatically make these changes in your templates to save you from doing so manually.
The following template files will be updated to ensure they are compatible with this version of SMF. Note that this can only fix a limited number of compatibility issues and in general you should seek out the latest version of these themes/language files.
Area   Changes Required
"English" Language Pack
(ModSettings)
1
"Default" Theme
(Modlog)
2


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It doesn't specify what needs to be changed so.... :S ?

Similar threads: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=394172.0
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=243246.msg1570224#msg1570224

[Jack_40k]

Also, does the phpinfo file work for you from the other thread?

[Tyrsson]

Yes, the phpinfo file worked I suppose.

By LAMP I meant the prepackaged distro package that is installed from the distro's repos. It can not be taken for granted that you installed it this way. You could have installed each (Apache, Php and MySQL) as separate installs and config'ed them....

[Jack_40k]

OK so what's the difference?

There is no other way to install Apache, MySql and PHP. My server complies with all of the minimum requirements set by the SMF website (although, what is the minimum version of Apache required?) relating to MySql and PHP. Please tell me WHY this is a server issue. There are various vague explanations pertaining to settings.. But shouldn't you know the settings required to run SMF? If I comply with minimum requirements, why doesn't it work?

Also - in reply to another user in the thread.. It's not that I don't WANT to give you access to my site - it is run on a virtual server. I cannot give you access unless I send you a file (the server) which is a couple of gigs large and you emulate it with VirtualBox, so please don't make it out that I'm not giving you access to information. I'm trying to be as transparent as I possibly can.

[Tyrsson]

OK so what's the difference?

There is no other way to install Apache, MySql and PHP. My server complies with all of the minimum requirements set by the SMF website (although, what is the minimum version of Apache required?) relating to MySql and PHP. Please tell me WHY this is a server issue. There are various vague explanations pertaining to settings.. But shouldn't you know the settings required to run SMF? If I comply with minimum requirements, why doesn't it work?

Also - in reply to another user in the thread.. It's not that I don't WANT to give you access to my site - it is run on a virtual server. I cannot give you access unless I send you a file (the server) which is a couple of gigs large and you emulate it with VirtualBox, so please don't make it out that I'm not giving you access to information. I'm trying to be as transparent as I possibly can.

This post shows the problems you are having. So let me list them.

1.) Yes there is another way to install those. You download the INDIVIDUAL install packages for each and install them, then configure them. Which, sometimes, makes a huge difference to what actual *default* configuration you end up with just after install. Please, read up on the subject it would help.

2.) Yes, you can give access to a Virtual server, companies do it all the time. As a matter of fact you public hosting could be running on a "Virtual Server" and you never know it. The Virtual machine can have a network connection just as a physical machines does, and yes I know this due to me having two different Virtual machines running on the system I am typing this on at the moment. You simply have to network them, open ports, forward ports etc blah blah.

3.) Its not simply a matter of "meeting" the minimum requirements. When you configure your own server, the servers configuration and how that effects how the server and its modules process information, in what order it processes that information, whether it does not process it, whether it logs that, whether it issues a warning, what level warning, and how all those variables ALLOW the script engine to process the smf code, such as how it handles session data and cookies. As an example, what is the php configuration value for the sessions directives? Here is a list of most if not all of them, however, please keep in mind this is for Php version 5.2.13 running as CGI/FastCGI.

Code Select Expand


session.auto_start -  Off
session.bug_compat_42 - Initializating of session variable in the global scope - Off
session.bug_compat_warn - Initializating a session variable in the global scope - On
session.cache_expire - Time-to-live for cached session pages in minutes - 180 minutes
session.cache_limiter - Cache control method to use for session pages - nocache
session.cookie_domain - Domain to set in session_cookie - no value
session.cookie_httponly - Access the cookie only through the HTTP protocol - Off
session.cookie_lifetime - Cookie lifetime seconds - 0
session.cookie_path - Path to set in session_cookie - /
session.cookie_secure - Whether cookies should only be sent over secure connections - Off
session.entropy_file - Path to an external resource using as an additional entropy source - no value
session.entropy_length - Number of bytes which will be read from the file specified above  0 Bytes


This is not all of them but if you look at the ini file that is loaded it will list them for ya.

[Pillas]

Did someone ever solved this? Since i am starting to have the same problem with my forum, and atleast it's not the clientside, since every user has different settings. I also got all the same settings in my php.ini as above, and i see alot of other people having the same problem.

It might not be SMF in general, but someone should atleast find out what's not working with what, since it has to be some kind of trigger. This cookie problem is just random, and you can clear your cookie cache and still get the error message..

[xenovanis]

Unfortunately, as it seems, there are no ideas about this. In all honestly, I have owned forums on different hosts and never had this problem even using integrations with other software.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help

[Jack_40k]

Fantastic news everyone! I have found the EXACT issue and hopefully now we can begin to fix it.

The problem is this: When I log in with a 'Minutes to stay logged in" option enabled, I get the cookies error. When I click the "Always stay logged in" button, there is no error!!!

That explains why I was able to log in using the 'quick login' bars - because the default setting next to the bar is to be logged in forever. On the actual login page, the default is to stay logged in for 60 minutes!

What I need somebody to do is to tell me how to GET RID OF the "Minutes to stay logged in" option and default all options to stay logged in forever. Then I can get my forum up and running again (YAYYYYY!!!!).

Now you support guys have something to work with: remembering that this issue does not occur with Firefox but does with just about every other browser (javascript problem?)

Thanks,

Jack.

[Tyrsson]

I will try to find sometime this evening to look into this further.

[Jack_40k]

Hey, so can someone help me out with the problem of removing the "Minutes to stay logged in" option and tell me how to enable "Always stay logged in" as the default option??

[Alex' Manson]

Hey, so can someone help me out with the problem of removing the "Minutes to stay logged in" option and tell me how to enable "Always stay logged in" as the default option??

i personally like that option it's kindof security in public pc's friend pc's so if you forgot to logout it logs you out automatically so the other guy there doesn't open you'r admin / mod account and start doing things..

[Jack_40k]

Oh ok. So what you're saying is, it's better not to log in at all that to be able to log in. Correct?

Or can you actually contribute to solving the problem at hand?

[adel314]

If you are having this problem on IIS machines then you might want to check your cookies settings (I had this problem for some time until I reset the cookies to the settings below)

Admin->Server Settings->Cookies and Sessions

Cookie Name = MECookie101
Default login cookies length (in minutes)  = 5600
Enable local storage of cookies = checked
Use subdomain independent cookies = unchecked
Use database driven sessions = checked
Allow browsers to go back to cached pages Seconds before an unused session timeout = checked

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Any updates on this? Surprisingly I've had some similar troubles lately - on several SMF installs, where I know nothing on the server side has changed. But it really seems to come and go, sometimes I have no problems logging in, when at times I have to try 10 times.
I have had the luck of noticing that this mostly happens to me on IE8, so I'm beginning to think it might be a browser issue in my case.

[adel314]

I spent a few weeks on this and was able to work around the problem by clearing the browser cookies each time.  I found if the browser remained loaded, you could log off and on as many times as you wished, even logging in from new tabs, i.e. the forum worked as designed, however the instance you closed the browser you would receive  the "Unable to login error again"  I believe it is something to do with not being able to create a session - I found at one stage the way to get the login to work was to put in the wrong password, this has the effect of clearing all the session cookies.

My initial installation worked for a long while, until I had to change the domain name, that is when my problems began - so my feeling is that it is a server side problem.  Anyway, my view is that ultimately the server must manage the inconsistencies that exist between browsers. 

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Ok, thanks for the insights adel314
Jack_40k, have you had any luck with this?