NationStates

Browsing on Forum 7 today, I have had significant difficulty posting in several threads. The problem I am having is the fact that NS seems to randomly log me out when I load a new page. I also fail security checks when I send telegrams, and have been told numerous times that my forum posts are in the incorrect form.

I have cleared my cache and cookies to no avail. I am using the latest version of Firefox on Linux Mint 17, and I am using a VPN to access the internet in order to avoid my ISP's absurd data collection policies.

Please halp.

I get this same issue on my phone sometimes. It's happened across multiple versions of iOS.

Failing security checks usually means you're switching between puppets, particularly in different tabs of the same browser. If you stick with a single nation or a single tab, you shouldn't get those problems.

Gregoryisgodistan wrote:It's happened across multiple versions of iOS.

I'n not familiar with IOS. Can you do tabs there too, or are you limited to one page at a time?

Frisbeeteria wrote:Failing security checks usually means you're switching between puppets, particularly in different tabs of the same browser. If you stick with a single nation or a single tab, you shouldn't get those problems.

Gregoryisgodistan wrote:It's happened across multiple versions of iOS.

I'n not familiar with IOS. Can you do tabs there too, or are you limited to one page at a time?

You can do tabs there, and I often have NS open in more than one of them since it's hard to close them, but I never switch between puppets on my phone.

Gregoryisgodistan wrote:I often have NS open in more than one of them since it's hard to close them,

Both gameside and forumside have timed sessions, where they will log you out if you've not been active recently. The start timing on the forum session is triggered somehow by the game session, so you need to visit your game page every so often (once every hour or two) to keep your forum session alive.

I routinely keep a copy of my nation page open, and forums in a separate tab. If I click the nation page (gameside) first, then the forums, I'm logged into both. If I visit the forums first, I'm usually logged out. So just as a habit, click gameside and then forumside every time you visit the site after an absence of more than 15-30 minutes.

Frisbeeteria wrote:

Gregoryisgodistan wrote:I often have NS open in more than one of them since it's hard to close them,

Both gameside and forumside have timed sessions, where they will log you out if you've not been active recently. The start timing on the forum session is triggered somehow by the game session, so you need to visit your game page every so often (once every hour or two) to keep your forum session alive.

I routinely keep a copy of my nation page open, and forums in a separate tab. If I click the nation page (gameside) first, then the forums, I'm logged into both. If I visit the forums first, I'm usually logged out. So just as a habit, click gameside and then forumside every time you visit the site after an absence of more than 15-30 minutes.

That's easier to do when you're not logged in on multiple computers. I keep NS open practically 24/7 on my desktop so I can run my recruitment script. I haven't had this problem until recently though.

Is there a reason the forum session timer is triggered by the game session?

Belmaria wrote:Is there a reason the forum session timer is triggered by the game session?

The forum session starts after a successful login. Since you don't log on to the forums directly, the forum has to query your nation (gameside) for the hidden/invisible password. If you're not logged in to your nation, the forum can't log you in.

Frisbeeteria wrote:

Belmaria wrote:Is there a reason the forum session timer is triggered by the game session?

The forum session starts after a successful login. Since you don't log on to the forums directly, the forum has to query your nation (gameside) for the hidden/invisible password. If you're not logged in to your nation, the forum can't log you in.

If I were sysadmin, I would look into hosting the forum on another domain altogether to avoid this problem, but I digress. I have no authority to tell you how to do your job, which you guys do very well btw.

Belmaria wrote:If I were sysadmin, I would look into hosting the forum on another domain altogether to avoid this problem,

I'm not seeing how that would address the problem. We want nations and forum accounts to be permanently linked, so people can't create an impersonator forum account to block out a legitimate nation name. We don't want people on the forums who haven't taken the 30 seconds to generate a nation. We don't want script adspammers creating random accounts to advertise their false passports and 'free' streaming sites, as happens to tons of open forums.

Regardless of how the domains are structured, you'd still need to look gameside for a forum account. It was an intentional decision, and in my opinion, a very good one.

Frisbeeteria wrote:

Belmaria wrote:If I were sysadmin, I would look into hosting the forum on another domain altogether to avoid this problem,

I'm not seeing how that would address the problem. We want nations and forum accounts to be permanently linked, so people can't create an impersonator forum account to block out a legitimate nation name. We don't want people on the forums who haven't taken the 30 seconds to generate a nation. We don't want script adspammers creating random accounts to advertise their false passports and 'free' streaming sites, as happens to tons of open forums.

Regardless of how the domains are structured, you'd still need to look gameside for a forum account. It was an intentional decision, and in my opinion, a very good one.

The forum could be built in an unconventional fashion in order to preserve the nation-linking currently involved.

For instance, when a user creates a new nation, a script could automatically generate login details on the independent forum that match the login details of the nation on NS, and send the user an automatic email informing them of this. If you make this the only way to register on the forum, there would be no skirting of the system. But alas, that would take up a lot of resources to accomplish, and I don't personally think this is a big enough issue to warrant it (unless this is a game-breaking bug for some people, in which case I would say go for it).

This just happened to me recently. I got logged out also.

Just checked my posts, I think I got hacked.

Confederate Ramenia wrote:Just checked my posts, I think I got hacked.

Please be more specific. Which posts have been made by your account that you did not make yourself?!? Any other reason you say this?

Ballotonia