Notifications issue

[Piperdane]

When I log in and see that I have "Notifications" I click on that and then I get an error message that says I do not have permission to view that page, accompanied by a page that says "You are not logged in" and I need to register or log in again.

Is this normal? Has been happening each time I get notifications and try to access them.

[myorgan]

Is this normal? Has been happening each time I get notifications and try to access them.

Pipedane,

Nope, that's not normal. The only thing in Notifications (at least for me), is my Inbox. An alternate way to get there is to log in, then on the left-hand side of the page, you'll see New Posts | Private Messages | FAQ | Calendar | Community | etc. Click on Private Messages, and check your Inbox. That should yield the same result as using the Notifications link.

Another issue may be the browser you're using. I've found most of the Internet has now gone to HTML 5-compatible browsers, and some of the functionality of the old browsers has been left behind. It results in exactly what you're seeing here. Your issue may also be related to Cookies and whether or not you accept cookies at all. First-party cookies should be fine.

I hate to provide outside links, but this link compares some of the most popular browsers: https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html

Hope this is helpful.

Michael

[Admin]

If you receive a message you're not logged in, you're not logged in. It may be necessary to refresh the page to see your true log-in status as unless you click the Remember Me box when you sign in, your session credentials may expire after a period of inactivity.

See:
http://www.organforum.com/forums/sho...ing-Logged-Out

As Michael points out, this site uses cookies to maintain your sign-in session, so make sure that you haven't turned them off in your browser.

[Piperdane]

Thank for your replies, Michael and Admin ...

Using Firefox browser, version 60.0.2, 64 bit.

Yes I am aware of cookies ... I admin for two music related forums.

I'll try what Michael suggests the next time I get a notification.

Edit: tried the suggestion. There are no PM's in my Inbox. The "notification" refers to someone having 'liked' my post, clicking on the "*" at lower left of the posting box.

If you receive a message you're not logged in, you're not logged in. It may be necessary to refresh the page to see your true log-in status as unless you click the Remember Me box when you sign in, your session credentials may expire after a period of inactivity.

When this has happened, I had just logged in (Thank you for logging in, Piperdane) and clicked on notifications which logged me out. Certainly my session credentials didn't expire within 10 seconds of logging in?

Edit: Checked "remember me" and logged in. (Thanks for logging in, Piperdane) ... immediately clicked on "notifications" and was promptly logged off ... had to sign in again. This time when I signed in it took me straight away to the helpful posts list.

Why is my account being logged off when this happens? There are no "helpful posts" inbox in my PM inbox.

[Admin]

There are no "helpful posts" inbox in my PM inbox.

Helpful posts information appears under Latest Reputation Received on your Settings home page, not in your private messages.

If you click Notifications when there are no new notifications pending, the navigation option displayed is Inbox. Clicking Inbox will take you to your inbox, but you'll find no new messages. If there are notifications pending, the options will be New Private Messages and/or New Helpful posts. Clicking on those options will navigate you to those items.

Why is my account being logged off when this happens?

The only explanation that immediately comes to mind is that your browser is switching between an encrypted connection (https:) and a non-encrypted connection (http:) or vice versa after your initial log-in. Encrypted and non-encrypted connections use different cookies, so if you log in under one protocol and switch different a one, you have to log in again to get the cookies for that protocol.

Browser providers are aggressively encouraging the use of https: so it's possible your browser is forcing a protocol on you when you navigate. That said, I'm unable to reproduce your problem using the version of Firefox you mention; however, Firefox is not my day-to-day browser as I prefer MS Edge or Chrome, so there is perhaps some security setting or add-in that causes this behavior that I'm unaware of.

I'd see if you can reproduce your problem using a different browser.

[Piperdane]

Admin,

Thank you for the kind reply. I will check to see what is happening in relation to my browser and http vs https.

:-)

[Piperdane]

Admin,

Happened again today. I logged in as normal, got the "thank you for logging in, Piperdane" message and saw there was one notification. I went to my profile page and there weren't any "notifications".

Went back to the home page (still showing that I am logged in) and clicked on "notifications" ... within two seconds the error message appears:

You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

I was already logged in, and my browser settings do accept cookies ... I know about cookies myself being a forum admin for two other vBulletin run sites.

When "notifications" appear on those two vBulletin sites there is a drop down menu that appears and the options take the user to the appropriate notification be it a private message, visitor message or other notification without prompting to log in again.

Not a big deal - just a little nuisance to be asked to log in again to see a notification.

[Admin]

Again, if the Forum says you're not logged in, you're not logged in. Cookies maintain this status provided that you clicked the Remember Me button when you signed in. If you did not click Remember Me when you signed in, after a time your session will expire and you'll have to sign in again. Note, as mentioned previously, cookies, and sessions, are domain specific. http://www.organforum.com, http://organforum.com, https://www.organforum.com, and https://organforum.com are different and signing into one does not sign you in to the others.

1. Did you check the Remember Me button when you signed in?
2. Which of the domain variations did you sign into?
3. When you clicked on the Notification button did the domain change in the address bar?
4. When you clicked back to the home page did the domain change in the address bar?
5. Is your time zone set correctly in your Forum Settings?
6. Is the clock on your computer set to the correct time and date?
7. Are you using an ad-blocker?
8. What Forum Style have you selected in your Settings?
9. Have tried clearing your browser cache and cookies?

As for the behavior of the Notifications link, clicking on it always shows a drop down. If there are no notifications it says Inbox. If there are notifications it will list the notifications as New Private Message or New Helpful Answers. If you do not see a drop down, there is something wrong with your browser or javascript configuration.

On January 2nd, the Forum will be migrating to VBulletin 5 which is a completely different software base than our current version and there are some differences in the way notifications are handled. Perhaps that will solve the issue for you, but this problem appears to be unique to you for some reason.