I'm gonna make a big post here for future reference:
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Some possible causes of users being logged out:
1) The user was idle for too long and was automatically logged out for inactivity. The timeout is set in your:
Admin CP -> Home -> Options -> User Options -> Online Status Timeout
You can increase the timeout or tell your users to check
Stay logged in when they login.
2) A problem with cookie scope due to inconsistent forum links. All internal links are consistent, but user-submitted links (e.g. in posts) and links from addons and other customizations may be inconsistent. For example, if you login to the forum with a URL that has "www" but then visit a link without "www" then the login cookie can go out of scope which causes the user to be logged out. It is important that all links and bookmarks are consistent. You can add a rewrite rule to your .htaccess file to enforce no www and thereby avoid the potential problem of inconsistent links:
Rich (BB code):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yoursite\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
If the forum and .htaccess file is in a subdirectory then you need to specify that in the rules:
Rich (BB code):
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yoursite\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/forum/$1 [R=301,L]
If you are using XenForo's .htaccess file for friendly URLs then you can add the new rules like so:
Rich (BB code):
# Mod_security can interfere with uploading of content such as attachments. If you
# cannot attach files, remove the "#" from the lines below.
#<IfModule mod_security.c>
# SecFilterEngine Off
# SecFilterScanPOST Off
#</IfModule>
ErrorDocument 401 default
ErrorDocument 403 default
ErrorDocument 404 default
ErrorDocument 500 default
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yoursite\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/forum/$1 [R=301,L]
# If you are having problems with the rewrite rules, remove the "#" from the
# line that begins "RewriteBase" below. You will also have to change the path
# of the rewrite to reflect the path to your XenForo installation.
#RewriteBase /xenforo
# This line may be needed to enable WebDAV editing with PHP as a CGI.
#RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^(data/|js/|styles/|install/|favicon\.ico|crossdomain\.xml|robots\.txt) - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]
</IfModule>
3) Your server is behind a proxy that is messing up reporting of the client IP address. You can visit this page in your Admin CP to check the IP reporting:
admin.php?tools/phpinfo
Search the page for "REMOTE_ADDR". It should show your correct external IP address. If the IP is incorrect or it changes between requests then you will have login problems. This kind of problem means everyone on your forum will be affected.
4) You are storing sessions in a memory cache such as APC and that cache is getting full or is having uptime problems. You need to ensure that your cache doesn't get full and is reliable. Otherwise you can disable session caching by removing this line from your
library/config.php file (it is false by default or when unspecified):
Code:
$config['cache']['cacheSessions'] = true;
