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  • I use SO daily (indeed hourly during business hours)

  • I visit a few other SE sites occasionally (eg aviation, space etc)

  • Since about, say, 3-4 weeks ago, I am logged out often as much as a few times a day and if not, then after say about 36 hrs (ie when a clear 24 hr period has passed)

  • Occasionally (say, once every week or two) it will be good for a longer period of time (say 3-4 days, then logged out)

  • As I say since 3-4 weeks ago, but, the same behavior has happened occasionally (say, for "a week or two at a time") since, call it this year

  • I use the "traditional" email/pass login

  • I use both macs & pcs for work, in all cases only with the latest OS, 95% of access is from macs, very rare pc access

  • on mac i use safari 99% of the time for SO access (it's possible I very rarely, ie less than once a month, use another browser). on pc I use only the msft supplied browser, whatever it is now named

  • I never connect using a phone/pad. I never use the SO app(s)

  • I do have two completely different fiber connections to this building. I generally but not always stick to the ATT one fwiw. I never use cellular to connect to SO

  • I have not noticed the behavior on any other sites I frequent (which are few, eg banking, my agent, wikipedia, etc, I'm not an internet user) (Actually, i specifically use a different browser ("brave," for the stupid name :) ) for any very rare general otaka web browsing.)

  • I think but I'm not certain this behavior began, at the time, SO started offering or slightly changed the way that is offered google login (or some other option, i don't pay attention but the log in offerings page has, I think, changed somewhat say within the last year)

  • I'm obviously a programmer but I work almost not at all with www/browsers, I'm a very naive www user so I can't offer much guesses

  • Anecdotally, when mentioned to colleagues etc. I get a few "yeah what's up with SO" comments; but no pattern. Right off the top of my head I'd guess it is a Mac thing, but, dunno. Another possibility is that I often swap around between various computers, and as mentioned possibly swap IPs/networks. (However, I have done exactly that for 10+ years consistently and identically and this is new behavior.) I don't immediately see a wave of similar reports on meta, so, of course, it's entirely possible it is some obscure issue or even mistake on my part; fwiw the (unlike me!) experts who look after my macs/etc haven't been able to find a cause.

Obviously this causes me no drama, I just stick my pretty index finger-tip on the reader and away it goes again, back to arguing about ux, but I just thought I'd report it in an idle moment.

Hope it helps!!!

PS it's always a bit weird putting bug reports on here; ie this is "A message to staff" I suppose, not "chat with free volunteers" so hopefully this didn't waste any time of free volunteers!! (As I understand it there is no bug reporting facility, as such, you just use meta.)


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    Yes, something is going on. I have been logged out few times myself in the last few months (last time it was today morning). Before I would have been logged on for years. Commented Jun 25 at 13:03
  • @DalijaPrasnikar ; sorry for the time waste! Funny thing though; now that you mention it, I'm actually pretty sure it only happens on SO. (I can't now remember it happening on the few other sites I very occasionally visit, "worldbuilding" and such.) I'll keep an eye out! For now if asked I would say "only on SO" - ! Scary!
    – Fattie
    Commented Jun 25 at 13:10
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    Yes, I 100% agree with your first comment above, that is in general exactly my experience. Again I think the behavior began at the time "google sso etc" was added, but I'm not sure.
    – Fattie
    Commented Jun 25 at 13:11
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    I am almost certain that Google login had something to do with it. My problems started right after they introduced it. I know as I was following main Meta posts around it. Commented Jun 25 at 13:13
  • 4
    MSE dupe closed into this one (preserving this one as primary - contains more in-depth info): meta.stackexchange.com/questions/400482/…
    – Slate StaffMod
    Commented Jun 25 at 14:33
  • @Slate how are you, just to be aware, I am say 50% sure this only happens on SO. Just FYI ! I Hate Bugs eh :) As I mention I have little interest/expertise in WWW so I can't give any better info or guesses or repro cases - sorry!!!
    – Fattie
    Commented Jun 25 at 15:12
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    Same experience, except... Non-SO network sites, PC only, using Google for auth. I've had very occasional issues going back a longer time frame but it's more frequent recently. 7 times so far over the last two months including one time where it was twice in a day. Commented Jun 25 at 17:21
  • This QA is becoming thrilling !
    – Fattie
    Commented Jun 25 at 18:54
  • I was just logged out LOL
    – Fattie
    Commented Jun 26 at 17:13
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    @Fattie It's hard for us to tell exactly how widespread this is, but can I just quickly ask - have you seen this behaviour occur on any other sites, e.g. Reddit, Amazon? I did a bit of digging on weird MacOS/Safari cookie behaviour and came across this thread which suggests that having the develop menu can cause problems - any chance you have this enabled?
    – cart StaffMod
    Commented Jul 1 at 10:57
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    cheers @cart absolutely not experienced on any other sites, unfortunately! FWIW () seen on various macs including brand new ones () as mentioned I less often monkey on Windows but have seen it there too (for example I was on a clients' virtual pc (ie using rdc from mine) and I happened to be checking something on SO, on that remote pc, since I was logged in, and it happened, it logged me out! heh!) () I was aware of that "developer menu mess" on mac when it happened () I've checked endlessly (since I use SO so much!) the various obvious settings, are cookies disabled etc, indeed on many mac
    – Fattie
    Commented Jul 1 at 12:17
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    s as mentioned, () of course, IT COULD WELL BE some obscure setting or ram problem or such, you know. it's so hard to repro things like this. (Plus there's the Macs suck" factor, for my www colleagues everything always seems that much harder to nail down on mac :/ )
    – Fattie
    Commented Jul 1 at 12:18
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    @cart ! ironically it just happened, heh, after not for a week or so. Observation: as mentioned when i see the log in screen (Feat. "use google" at the top right) i ALSO see the "take cookies" at bottom left. Just now that happened and in this order I (i) clicked accept cookies (ii) logged in with my usual password. now I am literally on SO in cluding this page. HOWEVER, THE ACCEPT-COOKIES (bottom left) IS STILL APPEARING. I have clicked arounbd to a few pages (incluyding this one) and it's still there. Could be a clue !!!!
    – Fattie
    Commented Jul 1 at 13:10
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    @cart using SO happily as usual, arguing about text editors .. I stood up to grab my coffee and then I had to use Google Drive for something and it happened to give me one of the security challenges where you have to use the Google app, I did so with no thought. Next when I returned to my argument on SO ..... BAM I had the "you must login + cookies splash at bottom left" from SO! Could it possibly be related? I will keep an eye on things. I have already tried to scorching all of my EO cookies obviously, I've done this many times trying to solve a prob
    – Fattie
    Commented Jul 25 at 16:44
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    lem, but might be in someway as a Google cookie or something? I'll keep an eye on it
    – Fattie
    Commented Jul 25 at 16:44

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