Question for techies... problems logging into forums.

[Don Simon]

Hi all, I know this isn't a computer forum but I figured most people here are pretty computer-literate, so was hoping someone would know something about cookies (not the edible variety) which I think are the cause of my problem.

For the last few weeks I haven't been able to log into www.photobucket.com or www.whatdigitalcamera.com; when I type in my details in the login screen it just reloads that screen with blank fields, also on whatdigitalcamera.com occasionally it tells me I didn't fill in all the required fields - when I did. I've tried deleting my cookies, lowering my IE security settings to nothing, adding the forums to IE's list of 'allowed' URLs, added them to McAfee's list of allowed URLs, deleted McAfee... nothing seems to work! This is very odd as I can login from other computers (unfortunately none of which are at my home). In the case of Photobucket it's particularly annoying as that was a good place to upload photos. Again sorry for asking such an off-topic question (well at least this is the place for it ) and thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[Chase]

Thats an oddball one. You may want to try giving Firefox a shot to see if you see the same problems, its a nice alternative to the IE browser. www.getfirefox.com

 

[Don Simon]

Thanks, I haven't tried that one. I'll give Firefox a try.

In the meantime I've tried registering with another forum; www.dyxum.com, and wasn't allowed to register - I got an error message saying "Only members with sufficient permission can access this page. A security error has occurred with authentication. Please ensure that all cookies are enabled on your web browser, you are not using a saved or cached copy of the page, and your Firewall/Proxy settings are not hiding or masking your IP address." None of those are an issue here so this is really confusing me. At the moment it looks like TPF is the only forum I can access, I'm just hoping I don't get locked out of here too.

 

[Chase]

I keep coming back to it sounding like its something browser related. IE is bad about not really dumping all of the cookies, etc, even though you click the option to do that. Let us know how it goes.

 

[whardman]

Assuming your using XP go to "C:\Documents and Settings\~username\Cookies" and "C:\Documents and Settings\~username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files" and try deleting all the files in these folders, this will forcefully delete all of your cookies.

 

[Don Simon]

Thanks, I tried Mozilla and tried deleting the contents of that folder but still get the same problem. This is really strange

 

[whardman]

Did you delete both of them ...

And it doesn't work with firefox ... :scratch: ... try deleting the cookies from firefox

Firefox uses the same folder as IE so if the cookie is there firefox might be reading it.

 

[Don Simon]

Yeah I keep deleting the contents of those folders, even tried doing so as each page loads, nothing seems to work.

 

[whardman]

Try deleting all of the folders in here ... "C:\Documents and Settings\~username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5"

Is the McAfee just anti-virus software. If not try disabling it.

 

[Don Simon]

The McAfee is a suite with firewall, antivirus etc. I tried disabling it, disabling all the McAfee applications in Task Manager; when that didn't help I also stopped them loading in msconfig. I deleted the contents of that Content.IE5 folder and that didn't seem to solve the problem either, although there was one file I couldn't delete in that folder... index.dat (when I try to delete it I get an error message saying it's being used by another program).

Meanwhile I've had a reply from Photobucket.com, who I emailed asking for advice about this and specifically asking them not to copy and paste their FAQ into an email... guess what they did? yep, copied and pasted their FAQ into an email...

 

[whardman]

Hmmmm. I'd have to think about that. If the McAfee is disabled ...... What exactly is the error you are getting?

 

[Don Simon]

For Dyxum.com I get this... "Only members with sufficient permission can access this page. A security error has occurred with authentication. Please ensure that all cookies are enabled on your web browser, you are not using a saved or cached copy of the page, and your Firewall/Proxy settings are not hiding or masking your IP address."

With Photobucket I get no specific error message; it just keeps reloading the login page. It's definitely the right login/password though because when I type anything else I do get an error message.

 

[whardman]

Do a view source on the login page for one of them and pm me with the contents. Also try submitting this page so I can see the results.

http://wesleyhardman.net/form.php

BTW, you're not using AOL are you?

 

[magicmonkey]

In IE head to tools - Options then go to the general tab (you should be there already) then click on delete cookies (which I assume you've done already but best to do it again to be on the safe side) Then click on delete files, select 'delete all offline content' and click ok. Now click on clear history and ok that. Now you need to close every copy of IE that you have open and reopen IE. If this is a cookie problem then you shouldn't have a problem getting in now, if you still have trouble we might have to look at your security settings etc.

Also, if you were able to get on but now aren't then something changed on your machine, did you install anything, do any downloads, have any virus alerts etc. Anything could help...

 

[whardman]

It's more complex than that. It also does the samething on firefox which leads me to believe its not with IE. He's also cleaned out the folders manually which is much better than the delete cookies/files button.