Auto-Logout

January 23, 2002 1:54 PM

Would it be possible to add an auto-logout option? I browse MeFi from school, and I often forget to logout when I'm finished. Perhaps an option on the Customization page to make your cookie invalid after 6 hours?
posted by skwm to Feature Requests at 1:54 PM (3 comments total)

Am I right in thinking that changing the current log out system is really troublesome?

I only say this because, having used MeFi and MeTa on a plethora of OS/browser combos, it always seems to be a matter of chance as to whether I actually logout or not when I click logout. Furthermore, the problem seems to have varied ever so slightly over my time posting here.

My latest log out problem is that not only is this page now "blank" (it used to reflect the home page):

http://www.metafilter.com/index.mefi?delcookie=yes

but afterwards,going to:

http://www.metafilter.com/

reveals that I didn't get logged out.

My old trick for getting round this was to refresh the logout page. This then led to an error (I've posted this before to meta, so I won't repeat myself), but on returning to the home page, I'd find myself logged out. This doesn't seem to happen no more.........

Now I have reverted to deleting the cookie when logging off.

Of course, sometimes, the whole system works fine. I'd be interested to see what OS/browser combinations have no problems because I'm soon to buy a new machine (haven't decided what flavor yet).

This isn't really a massive problem for most people, but I am still a bit worried that some day, someone might post to the site from a terminal I logged in on somewhere, sometime.

Having said that, I may just be excusing a future inflamatory post ;-)
posted by davehat at 11:33 AM on January 24, 2002

Um, I just managed to log in and out with no problem. Ignore this gripe.

Administrator, please hope me!
posted by davehat at 11:39 AM on January 24, 2002

Um, I just managed to log in and out with no problem. Ignore this gripe.

Yeah, I fixed it a couple weeks ago.

Administrator, please hope me!

I'll hope you later, I guess.


Yeah, I can do the temp login on the login page, I'll add that soon.

posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:52 AM on January 24, 2002