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Login In screen " click through "

W

Wrench

Member
When logging in I have been presented with this " click through " screen... is it just me ?
 

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Thanks for the explanation!
But I have been having intermittent trouble as follows:

I click on "continue" under the VAF logo.....

I am sent to the daily news home page, which I want to do....

But then, when I try to leave the home page using any link, I get sent back to the VAF logo page, and I get stuck there. Clicking on "continue" does nothing.

I then close the app, and start over, with the same result.

Today early, that was the issue. This afternoon everything is working normally, and I'm not seeing the VAF logo page. Chrome Browser.

Also, perhaps not related, in the last couple of months the site is not "remembering me" every time. I have to log back in fairly often.

Thanks,
Pete
Annual donation for many years, because it's my favorite and most-used site!
 
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Tabs in browser

I normally keep a few tabs open on my various browsers for the sub forums I monitor. With the site updates, that doesn’t work anymore as I often get kicked back to a screen where I have to click to continue and I lose all my saved tabs because it takes me to the main page. Is there any way to restore the old behavior? I assume I’d see the same behavior if I had bookmarks saved for the sub forums but I haven’t tried that yet.
-Bob
 
All,

We're working with a 20 year old version of vBulletin on modern versions of everything, there are limitations to what we can do while keeping the site secure.

General troubleshooting steps:

1. Make sure your OS is updated
2. Make sure your browser is updated to the latest version
3. Clear your browser cache
4. Clear your cookies
5. Restart your computer
6. If you've disabled cookies, make sure they are enabled

While we can't publish any details, we've made significant changes to deal with ongoing and severe DDOS attacks.

We'll be optimizing things going forward, thanks for your patience.
 
I don’t mind clicking through a screen, it’s the redirect away from the saved page that is frustrating as it takes a lot of clicks to restore the tabs I had saved. I definitely appreciate the site and the effort it takes to keep it online!
-Bob
 
I am getting logged out every third or fourth click of a thread or forum. Very annoying!

Cleared my cache and made sure I'm running the latest versions of both Mozilla and Chrome.
 
As an example, as soon as I posted the reply above this one, when it returned to the thread screen, I was logged out.
 
I noticed it only on my iPhone XR IOS 16.6.1

All is normal as usual using Firefox 121.0 (64-bit) on MacBook Air (M1) on 13.6.3 (22G436).
 
bkervaski said:
Logged out as in you have to enter your username and password again?
Click to expand...

Yes, that has been occurring more frequently, recently. E.g. when making a post and previewing, it requests login again. (it even happened while making this post!)

Separately, when is the intention to upgrade the BBS software to a supported version so that search will work?
 
I'm always glad to see Doug get a new sponsor, even if means a few extra clicks for me. Hope the bugs get worked out.
 
PaulvS said:
Yes, that has been occurring more frequently, recently. E.g. when making a post and previewing, it requests login again. (it even happened while making this post!)
Click to expand...

That's interesting. There's no "code" or mechanism in the forum software that would refresh the screen in the middle of a post and log you out.

PaulvS said:
Separately, when is the intention to upgrade the BBS software to a supported version so that search will work?
Click to expand...

There are no plans as, unfortunately, there is no upgrade path from a version this old. I explored this when I moved it to the cloud a few years back and we would have to build servers for each generation of technology and bring everything forward one step at a time. Some of that technology no longer exists or isn't easily available. Can it be done? I think so, given adequate resources.

This is the reason search doesn't work as well as it used to, the database format used when this version of vBulletin was released no longer exists. It was a task just to get the thing to work on modern technology. I'm familiar enough with the backend to actually just rewrite the search engine, it's a resource problem, not a capability problem.

If we can generate some business from our new periodic ads on the front page we'll look into this again, but right now there's just no way to cover the expense gratuitously.

I can't speak for Doug, but I *think* he would agree with me that if someone wants to start a gofundme or similar to see if we can get enough donations to pay for the "overhaul" we're certainly willing to do it. However, I'm skeptical we can get there with what's going on right now.

Also, I don't think everybody realizes how much traffic this site gets, it's not a trivial expense to keep it running smoothly (and fight the ongoing DDOS attacks by bad actors).
 
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I would suggest you start that GoFundMe right now. This site is almost unusable for me right now with the recent changes to it. I'll happily throw money towards an upgrade because it's too big to fail at this point IMO.


Literally every single time I try to post or edit an existing post, it logs me out and I end up chasing my login tail around and around. Took me at least 5 attempts just to post this reply.
 
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happened to me

MIKE JG said:
I would suggest you start that GoFundMe right now. This site is almost unusable for me right now with the recent changes to it. I'll happily throw money towards an upgrade because it's too big to fail at this point IMO.


Literally every single time I try to post or edit an existing post, it logs me out and I end up chasing my login tail around and around. Took me at least 5 attempts just to post this reply.
Click to expand...

This was happening to me 2 days ago when on my iphone, but all better now.
 
MIKE JG said:
Literally every single time I try to post or edit an existing post, it logs me out and I end up chasing my login tail around and around. Took me at least 5 attempts just to post this reply.
Click to expand...

That's not the site, there is no code or mechanism that would log you out in the middle of typing a post.

Also, it doesn't seem like anyone else is having this issue.

Try following the steps (in order) in my previous post anyway and see if that helps.
 
bkervaski said:
That's not the site, there is no code or mechanism that would log you out in the middle of typing a post.

Also, it doesn't seem like anyone else is having this issue.

Try following the steps (in order) in my previous post anyway and see if that helps.
Click to expand...

Happens to me frequently. Logged in, typing a PM or a response to a post - hit submit, get sent to you are not logged in screen.
 
KatanaPilot said:
Happens to me frequently. Logged in, typing a PM or a response to a post - hit submit, get sent to you are not logged in screen.
Click to expand...

When did this start to happen?

Can you post a screenshot of where it says "you are not logged in"?

Curious.
 
bkervaski said:
When did this start to happen?

Can you post a screenshot of where it says "you are not logged in"?

Curious.
Click to expand...

It started to happen more often since the recent site changes that DR announced. Previously, it would occasionally lose the login connection, but not very often. Mostly it seemed to happen if there was a delay in typing the post.
Once you log back in again, the unsubmitted post is still there, i.e. the data is not lost, so it's weird behaviour.
 
PaulvS said:
It started to happen more often since the recent site changes that DR announced. Previously, it would occasionally lose the login connection, but not very often. Mostly it seemed to happen if there was a delay in typing the post.
Once you log back in again, the unsubmitted post is still there, i.e. the data is not lost, so it's weird behaviour.
Click to expand...

Weird.

So both of you are saying you have to enter your username and password again?

And you're saying it's been happening, for how long? Months? Years?

There's no active connection, at least not in the way you're thinking, that's not the way browsers generally work. The server just attaches a cookie with a session id to your requests, that's how it keeps track of you. Then, once your browser finishes downloading the page and assets, the connection is dropped until you do something else that tells your browser to request or post information to the server.

At any rate, there's not adjustments that can be made server side and it doesn't seem to be related to the recent updates which were more network related than server related.

Anyone else having this issue? So far that's two.
 
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MIKE JG said:
I would suggest you start that GoFundMe right now. This site is almost unusable for me right now with the recent changes to it. I'll happily throw money towards an upgrade because it's too big to fail at this point IMO.


Literally every single time I try to post or edit an existing post, it logs me out and I end up chasing my login tail around and around. Took me at least 5 attempts just to post this reply.
Click to expand...

I think something that would help you troubleshoot your issue might be to post what browser you're using and version of Windows or IOS. For example I'm using Firefox 121.0 (64-bit) on MacBook Air (M1) on 13.6.3 (22G436) and don't have any issues, in fact it hasn't happened to me once on my laptop.

Now on my iPhone XR with IOS 16.6.1, it happened a couple of times and hasn't the last few days.

This way the programmers could see a trend of who's having issues or they might even notice you're not not using the latest software, then you'll know why it's happening to you.
 
Same here (getting logged out frequently, like within a minute). Cleared caches, enabled cookies etc. and no change. Win10, latest version of Chrome.

A fresh install of Firefox had similar results, only it was more like 5 minutes rather than < 1 minute before it logged me out. I did not import settings when I installed it, and I have "standard" security settings including blocking of cross-site cookies. Maybe that?

I'm not complaining as I can deal with it. Just providing data in case you can diagnose.
 
Those that are getting logged out, are you using private/incognito mode to view the site?
Knowingly blocking cookies?
Using a proxy server?
 
SPX said:
Those that are getting logged out, are you using private/incognito mode to view the site?
Knowingly blocking cookies?
Using a proxy server?
Click to expand...

None of the above in my case, just using vanilla Chrome on Samsung tablet and Nokia phone, up-to-date Android OS and browser software.

It just happened again and kicked me out when I previewed this post before submitting. Screenshot attached. Actually happened twice, second time was while uploading the screen shot.

This behaviour is apparently randomn and there is no obvious correlation with anything that I'm aware of. It has occurred occasionally for as long as I can remember (years) but has been much more frequent these last couple of weeks.
 

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Same here (getting logged out frequently, like within a minute). Cleared caches, enabled cookies etc. and no change. Win10, latest version of Chrome.
Been happening for about five days now.
 
When I click post reply, I get a popup saying: "You do not have permission to perform this action. Please refresh the page and login before trying again."
Four logins to post one reply.
Can't do an edit
 
I was having the same issue as the two previous posts and another member suggested logging on from a different device which I did and now everything is working fine again. Not sure if that means anything or is helpful but thought I would throw it out there.
 
bkervaski said:
Are you guys checking “Remember Me” when you login?
Click to expand...

Yes. I have clicked "Remember Me" NUMEROUS times over the past few weeks/Months. Sometimes the site remembers me for two or three days, and then it doesn't. It can be subtle, as well. I will click onto VAF, and start browsing. It lets me browse, and I begin to realize that there are far too many posts that are "Unread".

Then I realize that I am not logged in. I look up, and my user name and password are pre-filled in the login boxes, but I'm not logged in I have been browsing as a visitor without realizing it. So then I click on login. All good after that.

This behavior is fairly recent. Before this began to occur, I would click on my VAF button on my computer's home screen, and I would be instantly logged in to VAF and could browse to my heart's content.

The aberrant forum behavior is fairly recent.

Happy to get involved with any testing that might help!
 
Same logging out while using the site. Seems if I stay on one page more than a few minutes it will occur. Has always done that if I read a long article but seems to happen much sooner now. Otherwise the site works well.
 
Same. Do you have some type of rate limit setup for DDoS? Perhaps the Post of logging in and the get of the client render is tripping it? Don't know, hard to help without knowing the config. But yes, an issue since most recent "update"
 
gtrplaya101 said:
Same. Do you have some type of rate limit setup for DDoS? Perhaps the Post of logging in and the get of the client render is tripping it? Don't know, hard to help without knowing the config. But yes, an issue since most recent "update"
Click to expand...

Due to the ongoing DDOS attacks and bad actors, we won't be posting or discussing these details publicly.
 
I don't know if it will help here, but a behaviour that I noticed recently on this site and others is that my built-in password manager in Chrome will populate the name and password boxes (handy) but it doesn't automatically populate the "remember me" box, so if I have to log in again I have occasionally missed it, and that means I have to log in again the next time i'm back.

And having described that, I do recall now that I have been logged out a couple of times over the last few months here on VAF... I thought it correlated to when updates were done, but I am not 100% sure.

Separate feedback: That click-through screen is a PITA. I enter VAF by linking directly to the "New Posts" link, I never see the front page. The click-through screen takes me back to the front page, where I have to hunt for the New Posts link. Very inconvenient.
 
Just for clarity for those joining the discussion ... there seems to be some misunderstanding we're working through an issue or there is something wrong.

There's not, we're not working on anything or actively attempting to diagnose any issues with the forum.

A few have cited issues with the "most recent update". Apparently the issue being reported has been happing for perhaps years, with a recent uptick. The uptick is simply caused by more people using the forum lately.

We've already adjusted as much as we can to that uptick, based on the donations received. I don't think people realize how active this site is; it serves an unbelievable amount of traffic in peak times. There are 1000 lurkers to every logged in user.

The network changes included technology to handle the ongoing DDOS attacks and bad actors. There's nothing to change or adjust and I'm sure there will be false positives. We can't and won't discuss these details publicly for obvious reasons.

The goal is to keep the site online and available to as many people as possible. The alternative is it just goes away. There's only so much the donations cover.

While it sits within an ultra modern "cloud", the version of vBulletin being used is 20 years old. It needs updated, however, there is no upgrade path from this version to the current version. The effort to get it updated is significant, time consuming, and very expensive. We explored this in June of 2021 when we moved the site to the cloud. We want and need to do this, donations pave the way.

Best advice so far: Be sure to click "Remember Me" when you sign in.

Second best advice (if you're having the issue described or something similar): Turn off your password managers for this site.
 
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FWIW,
No issues here, using Firefox and the latest macOS (Ventura 13.6.1)
 
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bkervaski said:
Weird.

So both of you are saying you have to enter your username and password again?

And you're saying it's been happening, for how long? Months? Years?

There's no active connection, at least not in the way you're thinking, that's not the way browsers generally work. The server just attaches a cookie with a session id to your requests, that's how it keeps track of you. Then, once your browser finishes downloading the page and assets, the connection is dropped until you do something else that tells your browser to request or post information to the server.

At any rate, there's not adjustments that can be made server side and it doesn't seem to be related to the recent updates which were more network related than server related.

Anyone else having this issue? So far that's two.
Click to expand...

Was happening to me in the last 4-5 days if I try to respond to a post. I usually hit Preview Post before Submit and usually get a sent to a login screen between the Preview and Submitting. I'm using Chrome Version 120.0.6099.109 on MacOS X 10.15.7.

BTW - This one didn't present a problem.
 
stigaro said:
Was happening to me in the last 4-5 days if I try to respond to a post. I usually hit Preview Post before Submit and usually get a sent to a login screen between the Preview and Submitting. I'm using Chrome Version 120.0.6099.109 on MacOS X 10.15.7.
Click to expand...

Please see the suggestions at the end of post #44 and let everyone know if that helps! :)
 
Thanks, Bill. Site is working well for me; just like always. But I don't post a lot.

Warm regards,
 
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