[Resolved] forum logging users out and losing posts

emrys404

Hello, i have a forum on my site that i built from scratch and am currently having a problem with it.
I use sessions to keep the users logged in and i know the default session expire time is 180 minutes, but the users on my site make quite long and indepth posts that usually take over 3 hours to compose (so i'm assuming from the problem). The problem occures when they make their post after their session has expired and it loses their user name so then the post is lost. Is there any way i can make sure their posts dont get lost if they go over the session expire time? If there is a way to do without using cookies it would be preferable as i am not using cookies on the site.

Thanks for any and all help
-emrys

pablodelapena

simple suggestion:

On the page where the user composes thier post why dont you make a hidden form input containing their username. Then the next piece of script doesnt have to rely on a session. It merely takes the $_POST value and adds that. Then the post is added to the database no questions asked even if their session has expired.

THEN you cand eal with the user now that their session has expired.

emrys404

thats perfect! Thanks.

pablodelapena

Anytime 🙂

ucbones

pablodelapena,

surely that means that by editing the hidden field (i.e. by editing the HTML output and saving the form locally) you could post from any userID you want- I would suggest you store an encrypted password or something in a hidden file as well, perhaps as well as a temp code for that user, that lasts for say 24 hours. This shouldn't be too difficult to implement and should remove the key security risk of the solution you've suggested.