Authentication failed Time Limit?

[dhbookds]

A couple of times in the last wk or so, I've been working on a reply to an active thread and the red authentication message has come up for some reason....  On the first one, I didn't realize what it meant, so didn't copy the message and lost it.  Just now on the Tech Board, fortunately I did copy it..... this time I can say it came up within 20 minutes.  It can take me alot of time to answer some........checking info, copying info/getting screenshots, thinking (that can really be time consuming at least for me), but previously I've never seen that message unless the thread was removed or locked.  Apparently now there is a time limit? 

[loveyourimagination49]

Did you check to see if it went into your drafts?

[*coins]

I have gotten the same thing a few times too. Kinda annoying to type out a post and then lose it all.

[pburn]

I have an unreliable wifi connection (long story), so I've gotten into the habit of saving virtually every post I compose. I may need to paste only one out of fifty, but it sure saves wear and tear on what little patience I have left for this lifetime.

I always wondered if it was caused by a momentary loss of connection. I've had the "quick reply" feature stall out as well, and I always suspected it was the amount of time I was taking to compose a witty and overwhelmingly impressive response (considered by some as "verbose").

As @loveyourimagination49 said, I've been saved by the "autosave" feature in the "reply" (not "quick reply") feature more than once as well . . . I also find that quite often if I use my browser's "back" button, my post is still there and I can try it again--or cut it, refresh the page, paste it back, and then it will post.

[doug@ebay]

@dhbookds. @pburn, @*coins and @loveyourimagination49 thanks for bringing this to our attention. I'll look into this.

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@dhbookds wrote:

A couple of times in the last wk or so, I've been working on a reply to an active thread and the red authentication message has come up for some reason....  On the first one, I didn't realize what it meant, so didn't copy the message and lost it.  Just now on the Tech Board, fortunately I did copy it..... this time I can say it came up within 20 minutes.  It can take me alot of time to answer some........checking info, copying info/getting screenshots, thinking (that can really be time consuming at least for me), but previously I've never seen that message unless the thread was removed or locked.  Apparently now there is a time limit? 

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[eburtonlab]

@dhbookds 

I've run into that "Authentication Failed" message a few times. I think the last time I was able to open the main community page in another tab and sign in again there, and then go back to the original tab and post without losing anything. Not sure if it's a time limit thing, or just one of those random need-to-sign-in-again things. In many cases just reloading the page seems to be enough, but that can be problematic if you are in the middle of composing text.

It might be worth going to you eBay account settings > site preferences to make sure you have "Sign me in automatically to Community discussion areas" checked at the bottom of the page. That can get reset if you delete cookies or there are site changes, I believe.

[dhbookds]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

@dhbookds 

I've run into that "Authentication Failed" message a few times. I think the last time I was able to open the main community page in another tab and sign in again there, and then go back to the original tab and post without losing anything. Not sure if it's a time limit thing, or just one of those random need-to-sign-in-again things. In many cases just reloading the page seems to be enough, but that can be problematic if you are in the middle of composing text.

It might be worth going to you eBay account settings > site preferences to make sure you have "Sign me in automatically to Community discussion areas" checked at the bottom of the page. That can get reset if you delete cookies or there are site changes, I believe.

@eburtonlab Thanks, it's ok.......and I didn't have to sign in anywhere after experiencing the problem......posted before and after with no problems.  Was odd to me as it happened as I was typing.........at least the notification came up.  I don't know that it's a time thing, as I've left windows open for a length of time with 1/2 answered posts and nothing happened to those.......  May just be a hiccup somewhere......at least I know now to copy the message. 

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[dhbookds]

@loveyourimagination49 

there wasn't anything auto saved if that's what you mean...........

[dhbookds]

doug@ebay 

thanks doug..........

[berserkerplanet]

It happens to me all the time - probably 50% of my posts.

My replies are either one line or a thesis, and I have totally gotten in the habit of copying anything I enter in the editor to the clipboard before hitting the post button or preview or any action other than editing. A lot of the time it throws the error while I am typing and continues to jump to the top of the page every 30 seconds or so to scroll the red error into view (that doesn't seem to happen as much any more)


Related? forum authentication issue:
I have also been meaning to express my displeasure with what is probably the same issue but usually occurs when loading threads in tabs. I read the forums by loading up thread pages in tabs. Either mouse middle clicks - bang, bang, bang, in forums with just a couple new posts or for ones like Selling with 100 a day, up to 30 threads in tabs in a time delayed cascade fashion using a Firefox addon called Multilinks. It allows me to lasso threads on the forum page with a mouse right click and drag, and have them load in new tabs with a 4 second delay between threads (configurable, and delayed because these forums are the worst memory and resource hog I have ever encountered in almost 25 years on the internet).

Problem is, the forums log me out at random, even when active, and I often find that 28 of those threads loaded after Lithium silently logged me out, and show "join the community" at the top. That means they were not recorded as read, and as I use the read/not read functionality for my navigation, a problem, and I have to reload 28 threads. Trivial - right click on leftmost one and choose "reload right tabs" - but annoying and wastes server resources.

Why are we logged out (after a set time?) even when obviously active? And why can I let that browser sit idle for 24 hours, come back and refresh my forum profile page or load the Selling forum page and I'm still logged in? Inconsistent.

(I haven't bothered putting a packet sniffer or HTTP sniffer on it to see if silent authentications are occurring in the background at intervals which if so would explain the 24 hours idle being fine, but not the other random "sign in to the community" events)