Question

[Greathands]

I've always used the "remember me" option so that it automatically signs me in to the message board. From time to time, when I do a clean up and delete my cookies and temporary files, I have to relog in.

 

For whatever reason, this last time I deleted my cookies and temp files, I cannot get the "remember me" to work. I check the box, enter my username and password. At that point I'm logged on. But the next time I come back to the message board, I have to relog in again.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks!

[+ deej]

The first part is easy. Any "clean up" that deletes cookies will blow login information away because cookies is where "remember me" is stored.

 

The second part isn't so easy. The site cannot turn on your ability to "remember me". (That would flout every principle of online security there is!) Your browser (and to varying extents your OS) must allow storing login information in cookies. If that isn't being allowed, there's nothing we can do to make it happen from the server side.

 

I'm guessing you've unchecked some innocuous-looking option that disallows "remember me" but didn't tell you at the time what it really meant.

[Greathands]

Thanks for the info deej. In fact, earlier this evening I did find that for whatever reason, when I now delete my cookies, it automatically checks a box that says "delete history each time browser is closed". Now that I've unchecked it, it's fine.

[+ deej]

Thanks for the info deej. In fact, earlier this evening I did find that for whatever reason, when I now delete my cookies, it automatically checks a box that says "delete history each time browser is closed". Now that I've unchecked it, it's fine.

 

Glad you found it!

 

IF you have automatic updates enabled, this behavior change could have shown up on some download that you didn't even know happened.

 

This is exactly why I DO NOT RECOMMEND AUTOMATIC UPDATES*. Automatic updates are like having a checkbox that says "Make sure I never know exactly how my computer will act, or why".

 

(SOAPBOX ON)

 

I'll accept an update process that has a setting to "download and tell me they're available" so I can install on MY schedule so that I can encounter behavior changes when I'm expecting them instead of as a surprise or at a bad time (and invariably against a deadline).

 

I could accept automatic updates unilaterally if people were perfect, but they're not. Sometimes updates cause conflicts that were not planned. Sometimes conflicts were fully planned but unannounced (until you bump into them at midnight in a hotel room far from home). Sometimes updates let bugs in software slip through unintentionally. They just do.

 

Argh. Let *ME* decide when to change the way my computer behaves, dammit!

 

(SOAPBOX OFF)

 

*One exception: always and without fail let your anti-virus program self-update its virus database.