"YOU WERE SIGNED OUT"

So after spending some time viewing the forums I stepped away from my current tab to answer some emails. When I came back to the forum tab I was presented with the following screen:

https://imgur.com/IjqNRvZ

Could we please have this auto logout function disabled? It serves no purpose (from the users end) aside from unnecessary security (though most people save their login credentials anyways) and an annoyance in regards to logging in again.

Thanks.

Yeah, and it makes it worse that it's a really short window (something like 15 mins). Can you please address this?

It doesn't log everyone out. I haven't been logged out since the new forum started up. I use an iPad with Safari if that makes a difference so maybe it depends on what you use to read the forum. Maybe state what you use in case it's a bug related to certain devices or browsers.

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:It doesn't log everyone out. I haven't been logged out since the new forum started up. I use an iPad with Safari if that makes a difference so maybe it depends on what you use to read the forum. Maybe state what you use in case it's a bug related to certain devices or browsers.

I was going to say this, too. I haven't had to log back in since I started using the new forum.

I've had similar logging issues. I wonder if it's because I open several tabs at once, and if one tab stays open too long I get DC'd?

They have a script that will automatically redirect you to a logout page after 30 minutes of inactivity (no mouse, key or touch inputs).

If you're using an ad-blocker, simply block the script:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/plugins/AutoSignout/js/autosignout.js

@Rauderi.8706 said:I've had similar logging issues. I wonder if it's because I open several tabs at once, and if one tab stays open too long I get DC'd?

Yes, leaving 1 tab inactive will cause you to be logged out in all tabs.

@Rauderi.8706 said:I've had similar logging issues. I wonder if it's because I open several tabs at once, and if one tab stays open too long I get DC'd?

Yeah, that's my system too. So I'm "active" on one thread, but idle on others (and I have all sorts of anti-cookie, anti-script stuff going on), so maybe the site isn't counting accurately -- even though I keep seeing "draft saved at ...", it's seeing, "no action on 8 other threads, player must be AFK, g-bye"

It's not like this is a banking site. There is no reason for the auto-logout on this site.

I was just logged out while actively posting. It appears as others have stated if you have multiple tabs open, if one of those tabs goes idle you are then logged out. Seems like a pretty big oversight.

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:It doesn't log everyone out. I haven't been logged out since the new forum started up. I use an iPad with Safari if that makes a difference so maybe it depends on what you use to read the forum. Maybe state what you use in case it's a bug related to certain devices or browsers.

It's strange, yesterday it logged me out fairly quickly (using Chrome), today it didn't. I really don't know which factors come together for the quick logout - when I change the tab and don't go back to it within 10 minutes?

I will have to update my response and say that I am seeing this, too. It's odd that it will leave you logged in across sessions but times out if left open on the forum page.

I would like it if there was a "this computer is secure" option when you log in that will disable loging out, but warns you that you are responsible if your 9 year old kid grabs your keyboard and decides to type the lyrics of the entire works of Thugnificent from the Boondocks in the forums (and beleive me, that would be a looot of kittens).

But at the very least it should not sign you out while you are typing a browsing the forums or composing a comment.

A couple of other things I'm not liking:

The "draft saved" dialogue that automatically pops up every few seconds often appears over top of what you're typing. Could you just put it off to the margin of the screen so that this doesn't happen?

Also, I can see in my profile threads I've started, but I don't see a way to view discussions I am participating in. Perhaps I'm missing how this new forum handles that, but finding threads I've commented in by manually searching through the forums isn't ideal.

I've got this problem, too. Quite frustrating considering I'm the type to open up any thread that looks interesting to me so that I can read it later, only to lose them all if I don't get around to them quickly enough.

I understand that the features is added to increase security of the forum account. And I suspect it is not a bad feature to have on public computers. However it is quite annoying when used at home. I suggest either being able to tag an individual device from which forums are accessed as private/public or an ability to change logout timer in account settings.

Thanks, Gaile. This problem affected me, too, and I definitely appreciate the quick fix.

Even if it does log you out, I don't want to be staring at that message when I come back to the forums. Just give me the front page of the forums or wherever I left off.

It's now 24 hours (up from 30 minutes), which for security reasons, really isn't going to help anyone. I'm assuming the goal was to help those who left their accounts open in a public place, where it should be set to something more like 90 minutes. Why not just add an option to toggle it for the current browser by using a cookie or local storage?

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Yep, yep -- that was a nuisance!

We just made a change, and although we need to have a log-out system for security reasons, the time has been bumped considerably and it's not likely you'll find yourself out, looking in, nearly as much in the future.

Thanks for your feedback on this!

THUMBS DOWN !! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY REPREHENSIBLE !

It's a joke that it's for "security reasons". 95% of users would be using their own computers so unless stolen this isn't really a issue and I only see this an issue on places like china which have gaming places where people go to play on other computers. Sure, places like that are everywhere but very few exist outside of china. Even then it's the risk of the user to sign out of their own stuff.

I do appreciate the longer times in which the system waits before signing out however I think a simple checkbox cookie would have done to allow or disallow sign out in players profiles setting.

@Healix.5819 said:

Yes, leaving 1 tab inactive will cause you to be logged out in all tabs.

So this script will log you out of whatever sites you have open in other tabs? I have been logged out of sites the last couple of days that have never logged me out before. I was really concerned about that. Is it possible the log-out script from this forum is responsible then?

@Nikal.4921 said:

@Healix.5819 said:

Yes, leaving 1 tab inactive will cause you to be logged out in all tabs.

No, it does not affect your login on any other sites. Even if someone wanted to do that, your browser's same-origin policy would stop that.

@Cyprien.4208 said:It's a joke that it's for "security reasons". 95% of users would be using their own computers so unless stolen this isn't really a issue and I only see this an issue on places like china which have gaming places where people go to play on other computers. Sure, places like that are everywhere but very few exist outside of china. Even then it's the risk of the user to sign out of their own stuff.

I do appreciate the longer times in which the system waits before signing out however I think a simple checkbox cookie would have done to allow or disallow sign out in players profiles setting.

Great, now they're just going to lower it to 90 minutes. Way to go... ;)

@Cyprien.4208 said:It's a joke that it's for "security reasons". 95% of users would be using their own computers so unless stolen this isn't really a issue and I only see this an issue on places like china which have gaming places where people go to play on other computers. Sure, places like that are everywhere but very few exist outside of china. Even then it's the risk of the user to sign out of their own stuff.

The unsecured/public computer thing isn't actually the only reason to have an auto-logout. Session Hijacking is unfortunately a thing, which is basically when someone somehow gets your (valid) session key. The way to combat it is to encrypt packets so that even if the attacker gets the key it has to be decrypted before being used, and to enforce changing/expiring session keys quicker than the attacker can decrypt any keys they've managed to get. Thus, auto-logouts are an inconvenient but necessary security measure; especially since the forum accounts are connected to players' actual game accounts.