h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

can any one of the technical staff look into expiry date of cookies?

it is currently expiring on 1970-01-01

I have to re-log in every time, because cookie expires on 1970-01-01

Hi pheloxi

Is your computer set to the correct date and time? Does your computer occasionally seem to 'forget' the date and/or time?

It could be that the battery on the motherboard - the one that keeps the internal clock and other information going while your computer is switched off - is starting to run down. These batteries - known variously as clock, CMOS, P-RAM or backup batteries, depending on the make and age of your computer - aren't expensive and are quite easy to replace.

Amy

Traveller in Time on IE, Mozilla and Opera
"What browser & version do you use? Can it be the same as 'Mina'? < F19585?thread=573653 >"

Amy, the cookies are set by BBC on my pc. I can not change the expiring date. my pc date is correct.

I also deleted cookies to look if they would change, but did not they just placed new ones with same 1970-01-01 date.

TT, I use opera 7*, but I have same problem with firefox 1*

* latest updated

Trying it just now, I got a cookie which expires in a year, so if there's a problem, it's not with every account.

For the moment, you could try not clicking the 'Remember Me' checkbox so it sets a 'memory cookie'. You'll have to sign in again if you close your browser, but at least it would work for a while.

Out of interest, how are you checking the expiry date of the cookies?

opera
> menu: extra

> cookies

> select cookie
- BBC-UID
- OSS2-UID

> select one

> edit

Which cookie(s) have the dodgy expiry date?

all 3 cookies
- BBC-UID
- FP-TS
- OSS2-UID

You haven't installed some weird cookie-blocking software, have you?

What do you get if you type

nslookup www.bbc.co.uk

from a command line? It might be a problem with a particular BBC server.

I have webwasher 3.3 installed, but I have that for years. do not realy change the settings.

I get

non-authoritative answer:
name: www.bbc.net.uk
adress: 212.58..224.56
aliases: www.bbc.co.uk

Well, I can't reproduce it here, on Firefox, going to the server you're looking at, so I'm at a loss, unless it's something happening between you and the BBC. Can you tell if it's happening in IE?

I still think this is a problem local to pheloxi's machine. The cookie-setting javascript is not getting a sensible value for today's date from pheloxi's computer for some reason and therefore cannot calculate the date a year from now. As a result, it ends up adding zero to the UNIX epoch (01 January 1970).

Amy, my last visit date / time is correct 2005-01-30 / 09:47:29

the time is BT, but I live in CET

I get correct cookies now...

BBC-UID expires 2009-01-29
SOO2-IID expires 2006-01-30

the third had 1970-01-01 I deleted!

when I am quit opera and restart I am still logged in!