A VERY NASTY FORUM SOFTWARE BUG related to log-in timeouts

[DuinoSoar]

Hello.

When I logged in earlier, I chose to stay logged in for one hour.  (The next available choice was one day, but I worried that I might forget to log out, and did not want to accidentally leave it logged in for a full day.)

I was working on composing a long message, and had to work offline at tweaking a drawing in MS Paint.  Even though my forum log-in timed out, it still showed my avatar icon near the top of the page.  So I pulled it down and was presented with log-in fields in the pull-down.  After logging in, I FOUND THAT I LOST ALL MY PREVIOUSLY-ENTERED TEXT that I had already typed into the edit form!!!   (That's THREE angry faces.  I am "vaiwy vaiwy angwy!"

In future, I guess I can compose messages off-line in a local, offline text editor app, BUT I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THAT!  I should be able to compose the message in the online forum edit form (using the available features there, like adding links, etc.), leave it for a long period of time, then come back to it for further editing; or, at least, I should be able to "SAVE" it (without posting) from the editor page, if I know that I have to leave it for a long period of time.

Can this be set up in the forum software settings?  If not, can the problem be mitigated by adding other choices for the log-in timeout?  (Such as 2 hours or 3 hours?)

Sorry for the complaint.  This is still an AWESOME forum, and I am glad it is here.

Thanks and regards,
    Ed ("The DuinoSoar")

[HarrySmith]

I keep mine set to say logged in forever. Never lost anything that way

[TelePlay]

Yes, tuned or auto-log out causes all being worked on to be lost.

I agree with Harry, choose "Forever" to be safe.

Also, if you log in forever and are on multiple computers, and phones, logging out on any one of them will log you out on all logged in devices.

SMF wrote the software and does or did not provide options you suggested.

[countryman]

I can't see any problem arising from logging in "forever", unless you are on a public computer (should those still exist).

[TelePlay]

I can't see any problem arising from logging in "forever", unless you are on a public computer (should those still exist).

Yes, that's how I discovered the log out thing. I log in forever on my 3 home computers and phone but when I use the common computer at work, I log out and that logs all at home out. I try not to log in at with unless I really have to post or edit something.

[DuinoSoar]

Okay, thanks, folks.

"Live and learn," I guess.  I will try to remember to use the option to stay logged in longer.

But it is unfortunate that there is no feature to, at least, save text from the online editor form.

[Kellogg Kitt]

compose messages off-line in a local, offline text editor app

I agree that you should not have to, but I always do it that way, not just for this forum, but for all websites and systems.  I learned the lesson a long time ago with some of our systems at work.  After I got burned a few times, I started using a text editor.

It also is not a bad idea to save it on your hard drive (at least temporarily), especially if you have to step away from it for while.  This will help protect your work from a power hit, system crash, automatic reboot, etc.

[countryman]

But it is unfortunate that there is no feature to, at least, save text from the online editor form.

You could highlight your written text and copy it to the clipboard from time to time (ctrl-c). This wouldn't help should the computer crash, but the saved text would still be available in case of a logout or connection problem.

[tubaman]

It's not a bug, it's pretty normal behaviour for most forums. The reason your avator was still present is that the page does not refresh when your login times out, which is again pretty normal in my experience. As per the others I just use the 'forever' option and have never had any issues with doing that.