Login timeout question

[maratsade]

How long is the login timeout for the community? It  logs me out within minutes, when it used to take a lot longer to do so.  Has that changed?

[Liz]

Hi maratsade,

I noticed that too; seems to be a side-effect of whatever our folks did to address the logout issue. I'll see if someone knows the exact time.

-Liz

[maratsade]

It's a very short time. 🙂

[GabeU]

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@maratsade wrote:

It's a very short time. 🙂

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Yep.  I tend to keep the Window open in the background while I'm doing other things and then refresh it to see if there's anything new now and again, especially now with my current 'no email notification' issue.  Now, nearly every time I do so, I have to sign back in.  It used to be hours.

[maratsade]

Yes, that's my experience too, that it used to be hours and now it's only a few minutes, even if the window is left open, so it seems to have very little tolerance for inactivity now.  

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@GabeU wrote:

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Yep.  I tend to keep the Window open in the background while I'm doing other things and then refresh it to see if there's anything new now and again, especially now with my current 'no email notification' issue.  Now, nearly every time I do so, I have to sign back in.  It used to be hours.

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[Liz]

Hi,

So I've been told that the timeout window is 15-20 min, and that as long as you're on a page (working I think) you're fine.

Seems like this isn't the case, so are we trying to push for this 15-20 min or longer timeout window?

(Oddly, I've had a community tab open while working on other tabs for more than 20 minutes and I'm still logged in. Not sure sure how to replicate this.)

-Liz

[maratsade]

I would say it varies, but for me, it seems less than 15-20 minutes. I'd like to be logged in longer (like it used to be), OR to have the option to tick a "keep me logged in" button when I log in. 

[Liz]

Hi folks,

Just ruled out one possible root cause for now. Tried something else; I made an adjustment in our own community settings. Previously it was set to auto log out after 120 min of inactivity; just bumped it up to 200 min.  Please let me know if you notice any difference today before we tinker with any other settings.

-Liz

[maratsade]

I'll try it and see how long it takes to log me out. However, it's curious that when it was set to log out after 120 min of inactivity, in actuality it stayed logged in for hours on end, until one day it didn't anymore. Wouldn't that point to a non-community-settings cause?

[Liz]

That's what I thought as well, which is why I reached out to our folks in charge of the HN support site. However, they explained that they don't limit anyone's time in the community.

However, there's a 15 min window where you can navigate around the support center, webmail, and the community freely without reauthenticating (SSO in play). So if 20 min later you decide to move from the community to webmail, then you'll be prompted to sign in.

I hope that makes sense.

-Liz

[maratsade]

I waited one hour after my post. When I came back  I had been logged out, though I can't say how soon after I left I was logged out. 

"there's a 15 min window where you can navigate around the support center, webmail, and the community freely without reauthenticating (SSO in play). So if 20 min later you decide to move from the community to webmail, then you'll be prompted to sign in."

Yep, I've seen that, but the logout from the community is a new thing. 

[maratsade]

I posted at 3:43 - returned at 4:20 and was logged out. 

[Liz]

Thanks for the time stamps! So where did you go after posting? Wondering if the community was left often and untouched while you continued browsing on a completely different site in a different tab/window.

[maratsade]

I closed the tab that had the community up. That's what I used to do; close the tab and come back later to a still logged in community; so I was trying to replicate my regular behaviour. 

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@Liz wrote:

Thanks for the time stamps! So where did you go after posting? Wondering if the community was left often and untouched while you continued browsing on a completely different site in a different tab/window.

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[Liz]

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying!

[GabeU]

I was just away from the Community for a good hour while doing other things.  When I came back and refreshed the page to check for new notifications it was still signed in.  🙂

[maratsade]

Another day, another theory:  I think the early logout might be due to a browser add-on. I haven't installed any new add-ons in yonks, but they update themselves every so often and I wonder if one of those updates changed the way the add-on behaves.  I will test the community's logout time using incognito mode (no add-ons) to see if my theory holds. 

EDIT: Well, that didn't work. 

48 minutes after posting the above, I came back to the site and had been logged out. 😠😠😠

[Liz]

Ahhh those add-ons, very good idea, I forget about those. Curious to hear how it goes.

-Liz

[maratsade]

Didn't work, actually; 48 minutes after posting the above post (using incognito mode), I came back to the site (sill in incognito mode) and had been logged out. Bah humbug. 

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@Liz wrote:

Ahhh those add-ons, very good idea, I forget about those. Curious to hear how it goes.

-Liz

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[Liz]

Hmm ok, I'll poke around and see what could be the cause despite our settings set to the max for inactivity.

-Liz

[maratsade]

More data:

Before the community started logging me out after a while, I could

• come to the community using a new browser tab
• login, post, reply to PMs, etc.
• close the tab 
• continue to work using the same browser (browser remained open; only HN tab was closed)
• come back hours later and still be logged in provided I had't closed the browser

Now, it seems that

• I stay logged in for a while as long as I don't close the tab
• Closing the tab means a quicker logout

Before, I could stay logged in even if I closed the browser tab for HN. Logout would only occur if I closed the browser. 

Hope this makes sense.