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Can the session timeout be lengthened?

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Doug G

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Can you increase the php session timeout? I read forums by opening a forum in a new window and look for new posts, but if I wander away for 5 min or so new posts are no longer identified as new.
 
Doug G said:
Can you increase the php session timeout? I read forums by opening a forum in a new window and look for new posts, but if I wander away for 5 min or so new posts are no longer identified as new.
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I dunno... I don't seem to have that issue. Could it be browser related?

Also, I take a different approach as well. I open a 'New Posts' tab and read from there. Why hunt around when the software does it for you? :)
 
Stone said:
I dunno... I don't seem to have that issue. Could it be browser related?

Also, I take a different approach as well. I open a 'New Posts' tab and read from there. Why hunt around when the software does it for you? :)
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I doubt it's browser related, I visit a few other vbulletin forums and don't have the same problem. I doubt many others use the same forum reading technique I use, open the forums list, open each forum in a new tab and view the list of posts, and open posts to read in a new tab.

I've been reading forums like this since before there were forums and usenet was the only way to get help with cygwin/perl/iis/cgi problems, and I like it. I've tried reading just new posts, but I enjoy refreshing my memory from viewing the overall lists of forums & posts. Often an older thread catches my eye and viewing just new posts I wouldn't see it.

Kind of like how I don't like documentation without a table of contents.

Back when I worked at CDC as a hardware guy and got sent to a training class on some new hardware, the first thing I'd always do was quickly scan the table of contents for all of the 50 lbs of documentation dumped on the table. Modern search is great for quickly finding an answer to a specific topic, but just searching for the topic at hand isn't particularly educational in "the big picture".

Anyway, if you use just the new posts list you'll probably never see my issue. I believe it's a php session timeout setting, not a vb or browser setting.
 
I've run into timeout issues too. I usually read threads in a separate tab and the new tab usually times out after a few minutes, while the Activity Stream tab stays logged in.I use Firefox for what its worth.

Tom
 
per said:
I have the bookmark to this site hardwiered to show all posts the last 24 hours, which is very handy if you want to quickly see new posts allthough they are listed as "read". The exact link is pretty straightforwards: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/search.php?do=getdaily
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That is a useful link. Thanks for pointing it out. I guess I don't get "timed out" quite like the others describe but after a few minutes (15-30 or so?) trying the new post navigation link no longer shows posts prior to the last time the link was loaded. If that getdaily link is somewhere in the existing navigation I never noticed it before.
 
ClassicHasClass said:
I run into this problem also. The session seems to time out faster for inactivity than other forums. Another five or ten minutes would be great.
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What do you mean by time out? Do you mean you have to log in again? If so, either read or re-read this:

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...ion-timeout-be-lengthened&p=421526#post421526

I don't think my session ever times out. About once a month it requires me to log in but that's about it! I would guess that's a security measure.
 
deathshadow said:
Dimes to dollars, that's what the OP is missing.
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Wrong.
Session timeouts are what asp and php do to conserve resources. HTTP is stateless, so server-based apps maintain a session while you're on the app, which among other things is used to identify you when you initiate server activity such as a post. When your session times out, the server can't identify you any longer and if "remember me" is on will log you back on automatically, unfortunately this changes properties like you session login time, etc.

One side effect is the server code that identifies what posts are read/unread changes, and if you were unfortunate enough to have a lengthy reply in a reply window that you hadn't posted, you'll lose what you've written and will have to start over (or with firefox anyway, have the textarea cache add-on installed).

This session timeout value is configured in the web server, both in IIS and php configuration settings.
 
Doug G said:
Wrong.
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Unlikely to be wrong, since I do all the things you just described quite frequently on forums, and rarely if ever encountered that unless it was DAYS of leaving the tab open... and even then it's not doing that for me here.

But five minutes as the OP reported? No... something else is wrong there.
 
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