Sometimes I get a 404 error from SMF when visiting the forum...

[superwormy]

Sometimes if I visit this URL: aoba-metro.org/forum [nofollow]

It forwards me to:
http://www.aoba-metro.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=4d95f4545a37875af7812a46298d9fb1;www [nofollow]

Which then produces a 404 error. However, when I then visit the same URL again... it suddenly works. I believe it's some sort of cookie issue.

Is there a way to fix this / does anyone know why that happens?

[Kill Em All]

You might want to try going to Admin>Server Settings>Feature config> and enable local storage of cookies. or if it is enabled try disabling it. Tell us how that works for you.

[superwormy]

OK, I tried that, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. Could it be a stored cookie/session issue? How can I clear all stored cookies/sessions?

[kat]

Give us a clue, here...

What browser do you use?

[superwormy]

Ah, to clarify: It is not a browser-dependent thing. (I know how to clear cookies within the browser). It happens on any browser, on any machine. Firefox on Linux, Firefox on Mac, Safari on Mac.

Is there a way to clear the *server side* storage of cookies/sessions, so that I can determine if it's just some sort of corrupted session thing?

[kat]

You could always rename the cookie...

[superwormy]

Kat:
Read the rest of the thread. It's not an issue with a cookie on my computer, and I don't know where the database sessions/cookie data is stored on the server. So, how am I supposed to rename it?

The whole issue is that it redirects my incorrectly when I visit the forum initially, but then works correctly thereafter. Do you have any idea why this would happen?

[kat]

Admin>server settings>Cookie Name

Try making it "SMFCookie10", or something.

[superwormy]

Hrm, nope, that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Would SMF be doing the redirecting from aoba-metro.org [nofollow] to www.aoba-metro.org [nofollow], or maybe that's an Apache thing...?

[superwormy]

I found the answer! Or at least part of it, and a fix!

In Sources/Load.php, line 1229-ish in SMF 1.1.7 looks like this:

      // Hmm... check #2 - is it just different by a www?  Send them to the correct place!!
      if (empty($do_fix) && strtr($detected_url, array('://' => '://www.')) == $boardurl && (empty($_GET) || count($_GET) == 1))
      {
         // Okay, this seems weird, but we don't want an endless loop - this will make $_GET not empty .
         if (empty($_GET))
            redirectexit('www');
         else
         {
            list ($k, $v) = each($_GET);

            if ($k != 'www')
               redirectexit('www;' . $k . '=' . $v);
         }
      }

That chunk of code causes the forum to redirect to an incorrect URL if you visit it from aoba-metro.org/forum [nofollow] because the forum is configured as www.aoba-metro.org/forum [nofollow]. This is a *bug* in SMF as far as I'm concerned. I want my forum accessible from either www.aoba-metro.org/forum [nofollow] *OR* aoba-metro.org/forum [nofollow], and I don't want it to redirect my users if they visit it from one URL or the other.

I commented out those lines and it fixed the problem.

[JBlaze]

There must be something wrong with the redirect as I get http://www.mysite.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=26b0e401608d7f52617e1c3397b2ca83;wwwRedirect

Note the added Redirect after www.

[superwormy]

Weird. Same version of SMF? 1.1.7? Maybe it's been fixed in other versions.

[JimM]

If this is solved please mark it solved by clicking the Mark Topic Solved link at the bottom left of the page.