Thread

One of our websites uses the admin feature to disallow multiple log-ins from a single account, but it’s proving to be unreliable and bothersome.

Users can log into their account just fine, but when they log out, even after getting an EE message stating that they’re logged out, the message, “somebody is already logged into this account” shows up. They clear their cookies, dump the cache and even close/re-open the browser, but they still remain “logged in”.

As a side note, people aren’t going to domain.com/system to log into EE, as these aren’t control panel users. They’re going to domain.com/login.

The only solution we’ve found is to go directly into MySQL and dump the contents of the sessions table. Problem is, this action logs everybody out and it’s far from ideal.

Any ideas on what to do?

Version is 1.7.1.

thanks

geof

Hi geof ,

What do you have set for User Session Type under Security and Session Preferences?

Admin > System Preferences > Security and Session Preferences

Can you set it to Cookies only if its not already and see if issue persists?

John,

It’s currently set at Cookies and Session ID. I just changed it to both Cookies only and Session ID only, but then the feature no longer worked; I was able to log in at various computers using the same account.

thanks

geof

Hi, Subvert -

A few questions along the troubleshooting line:

Is the domain changing during form submission by any chance?  Adding/removing www via .htaccess or similar?

Are you using any forms of caching on your site?

And lastly, is there any chance your users are behind corporate/large-scale caching/proxy systems?

We’ll work with you to get to the bottom of this, but do need more information to proceed. Thank you!

Lisa,

Nope, it’s always www, as set through the EE control panel. The htaccess file appears only as follows:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

There is some EE-enabled caching turned on to help speed things up. Should I turn that off?

It may be a problem with corporate systems, as there’s plenty of government employees who access the website. Problem is, I’ve heard it’s a problem with home users as well.

Hi, Subvert. It won’t *hurt* to tun off caching for testing. Can you replicate the problem yourself?

Hi, Subvert. It won’t *hurt* to tun off caching for testing. Can you replicate the problem yourself?

I tried, but can’t make it happen again. I’ve, at the same time, used multiple platforms and multiple browsers, but still nothing.

Could it be the way that EE is writing the cookie that IE 9 doesn’t agree with? I bring that up because one of the complaints was from a user accessing the site via IE 9.

thanks

geof

Hi Geof,

You say you had one of the complaints from a user using IE9. Did you have any more or were these problems all on different browsers?

When you say you don’t have the problem is this by logging in from home / your work-place or have you / are you able to go along to one of the sites where logging in / out is a problem and test with your own computer perhaps?

Could the people who are having problems perhaps try the site using a different browser such as FireFox just to rule out the browser too?

Lastly the home users who are having problems are they also government based and do they perhaps have some firewalls set up in order to access the site even though they’re at home?

Thanks,

Mark