Have had several emails from people who have either been posting here for a long time, or in one case a new person trying to sign up who is using an Apple Mac.
All of them are using AOL and every complaint I have had in the last couple of weeks have been from AOL users. Usually the fix for this is to use another browser than the Internet Explorer that AOL tries to force you into using. Downloading the free Firefox browser will get you around this in most cases.
Some people do not know that AOL downloads new upgrades and such to your computer without your knowledge, and you have absolutely no choice in this. I feel that AOL has changed something in their software or settings in the last couple of weeks, and its not sending "cookies" to our bulletin board, so every time someone using this ISP tries to post they are either blocked or not allowed to post.
What to do with this person using an Apple/Mac is a good question as I am not familiar with this style of computer at all.
Anyone using AOL and not having any problems can you pls chime in and let us know what you did to get it to work here? We had this issue years ago and thought we had it taken care of, but you know AOL...
If anyone is trying to post but cannot, get ahold of me at: joeaksa AT attglobal.net (replace the AT with @)
Issues with the bulletin board. AOL or Apple/Mac pls look
-
mikeproctor
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 07:43
- Contact:
-
Carl Prather
- Posts: 234
- Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2004 11:21
- Contact:
Macs and such
Joe,
I have a Mac and the site works just like my Windows-based computer less the phishing and virus problems and software glitches. I gladly do not use AOL!
Carl
I have a Mac and the site works just like my Windows-based computer less the phishing and virus problems and software glitches. I gladly do not use AOL!
Carl
Update
Mike Proctor just sent me this. Evidently the problem is with AOL.
~~~~
Hi Joe,
I did a little research into the aol and phpBB problem and found this,
posted here:
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... n#p6481165
# My AOL based users keep getting logged out!
phpBB2 uses sessions to keep track of users as they browse the board.
These sessions use a combination of a unique session id and the users
IP to identify each user. We make use of the IP as an extra safe-guard
to help prevent sessions being hijacked (by discovering the unique
session id).
Unfortunately this only works when the users IP is constant as they
browse the board. For most users this will be the case. However
certain providers route their users via a cluster of proxys. In some
cases, particularly AOL this results in different IPs being forwarded
as the user moves between pages. We take account of this by not
checking the entire IP but only the first "three quads". Again in most
cases this will be fine. However again AOL uses IPs which can vary so
much that checking only the first two quads results in a fairly static
IP being available for session validation.
If you are experiencing problems related to this you can make a small
change to the code. Please note that reducing the IP validation length
does potentially increase the risk of sessions being hijacked (this is
something for you to consider, phpBB Group takes no responsibility
should anything happen!). The change requires you to open the file
sessions.php in the includes/ directory of the distribution. Find line
250, it contains the following
$ip_check_s = substr($userdata['session_ip'], 0, 6);
change this to:
$ip_check_s = substr($userdata['session_ip'], 0, 4);
You need to make exactly the same change to the number 6 in the next
line. Save the file (and upload it if required). This should reduce or
eliminate the problem noted.
~~~~
Now I just need to find the time to dig into the source code on the bulletin board and change this entry!
Joe
Mike Proctor just sent me this. Evidently the problem is with AOL.
~~~~
Hi Joe,
I did a little research into the aol and phpBB problem and found this,
posted here:
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... n#p6481165
# My AOL based users keep getting logged out!
phpBB2 uses sessions to keep track of users as they browse the board.
These sessions use a combination of a unique session id and the users
IP to identify each user. We make use of the IP as an extra safe-guard
to help prevent sessions being hijacked (by discovering the unique
session id).
Unfortunately this only works when the users IP is constant as they
browse the board. For most users this will be the case. However
certain providers route their users via a cluster of proxys. In some
cases, particularly AOL this results in different IPs being forwarded
as the user moves between pages. We take account of this by not
checking the entire IP but only the first "three quads". Again in most
cases this will be fine. However again AOL uses IPs which can vary so
much that checking only the first two quads results in a fairly static
IP being available for session validation.
If you are experiencing problems related to this you can make a small
change to the code. Please note that reducing the IP validation length
does potentially increase the risk of sessions being hijacked (this is
something for you to consider, phpBB Group takes no responsibility
should anything happen!). The change requires you to open the file
sessions.php in the includes/ directory of the distribution. Find line
250, it contains the following
$ip_check_s = substr($userdata['session_ip'], 0, 6);
change this to:
$ip_check_s = substr($userdata['session_ip'], 0, 4);
You need to make exactly the same change to the number 6 in the next
line. Save the file (and upload it if required). This should reduce or
eliminate the problem noted.
~~~~
Now I just need to find the time to dig into the source code on the bulletin board and change this entry!
Joe