Login no longer persistant

[mrsfalcon]

I have a very strange problem that started this morning. I am running a forum at http://www.raptorresource.org/forum/.

Users are able to login, but when they click on a board, they lose their login and have to relog for each board. The login is no longer persistent from page to page - it is like smf 'forgets' us users, including me.

I have tried this on multiple browsers - not that it should be a problem, but I wanted to rule it out - and it is a problem regardless. See the attachments:

Attachment forum1 is me logged in and about to click into a new board
Attachment forum2 - SMF forgot me! Any suggestions?

[Kindred]

Check with your host to see if they changed something

Also, what are your cookie settings in smf admin?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Did you change something?
Anything in your error log?
What are your settings in Admin -> Server Settings -> Cookies and Sessions?

[mrsfalcon]

I checked with the ISP and they told me it was third party unsupported software. I'll call them tomorrow - online chat support is easy to access, but their responsiveness sucks.

Screen shot of settings attached. In the settings.php file: "$cookiename = 'SMFCookie60';"

[mrsfalcon]

It happens only on the board pages. When I click into a topic, everything is fine again.

Amy

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Try enabling local storage of cookies.

[mrsfalcon]

Enabling local storage didn't work, unfortunately.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Did you check your error log?  See what your host has to say.  Something must have changed somewhere if the problem just appeared recently.

[Kindred]

Happening only on certain pages?

It almost certainly means that the history activated mod_security and has it poorly configured.

Ask the host to disable mod_security

[mrsfalcon]

Checked with the ISP this morning. They disabled mod_security and it didn't solve the problem. I'm thinking about maybe reinstalling it.

[Kindred]

Did your host, per chance, recently upgrade the php version?

[mrsfalcon]

I'll ask. I ran phpinfo, so I can tell you it is PHP Version 5.2.17, but I don't know if it was recently changed. Thanks for the help and suggestions!

[Kindred]

yikes... php 5.2 is at end of life - your host should not be running anything less than 5.3.29 and really should be running 5.6 by now if not cutting edge to 7.0

[mrsfalcon]

 The ISP did not actually disable mod_security - turns out they whitelisted a process. They won't disable mod_security. I tried installing your path at the top of this thread, but I can't install anything right now. I went through the file and cut-and-pasted the code by hand into the appropriate places, but that didn't work either. It is interesting that it seems to be an issue primarily with the categories. Is this a reserved word or process problem?

Just for giggles, I installed a new version of SMF in another forum on the same site. It had the same problem.

At any rate, I'll keep checking for a fix or trying to get the ISP to help me out.  You can go ahead and close this thread, though.

[Kindred]

the pacth in the sticky post was to correct one specific instance of mod_security that affected the package manager....

your host's configuration is affecting the boards...   which is bizarre and just goes to prove that some hosts really have no clue how to configure the systems that they are supposed to be maintaining.

[Illori]

the pacth in the sticky post was to correct one specific instance of mod_security that affected the package manager....

no it was for when editing/creating categories.

[mrsfalcon]

Kindred, if you or Irisado have any suggestions for configuration, I'll take them back to the ISP. If not, that is okay too.

[Steve]

I think you mean Illori.

[mrsfalcon]

Whoops!

[Illori]

we dont know what their configuration is. without knowing that part we cant tell what will fix the issue other then completely and totally disabling mod_security. if they will not do that you can always look for a host that does not use it.

[mrsfalcon]

Thanks, Illori. I'll keep at it. This can be marked closed.