RootsChat.Com
General => Technical Help => Topic started by: trystan on Monday 18 October 04 09:19 BST (UK)
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You may have seen on some sites advising you to check that your computer is not "blocking cookies" (and no it's not a WeightWatcher thing). Some sites do not work correctly when cookies are blocked. (RootsChat can work around computers with blocked cookies, but there are a few quirks when cookies are blocked).
To test if cookies are being blocked, try the following link:
http://www.rootschat.com/help/cookie.html
If cookies are being blocked it will say that it has gone pear shaped.
Trystan
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Done that Trystan and it says my computer is accepting cookies............. Lyn
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Hi, Tristan, Seems that I am not clued up on the 'Sign In' proceedure. Is the first name the Surname or the given ? All in lower or upper case ? When it comes to the Cookie does the given number have to be inserted in the space, or ?. I keep getting different numbers and the 'Knock back'
I think I will have to reverse my 87 years to '8 or 7' and then I will 'SAVVY'.
As said in 'The King and I' ... "It's a Puzzlement"
Over to 'U'.
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Hello wrjackson,
I'm not sure if you are having problems logging on, but you've logged in fine becasue you have posted a message. Is it the RootsChatterBox you can't log into?
Trystan
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Essex girl and others,
'Cookies' are not in general a good thing to allow on your computer.
They allow the 'planter'of the cookie to track your use of the internet and of all the sites you visit.
They are also a way in for the nasty people of the Net : planters of Viruses and those interested in any Banking or other financial or private business you do or have on your computer.
It is possible to ALLOW the cookies of trusted sites --- for example your Bank , or Rootschat , but to block all others.
Percy
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"Hi" again Trystan, Seems that very slowly I am getting the 'hang' of this "Roots Chat" ... should not take me more than another 10 years .. or at least, that is what my son thinks. He is the professor while I am still in the infant class. We are both on "Mac's")
W.R. Jackson. ..... Just call me BOB.
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We are both on "Mac's"
Well, I thought I was the only person using a mac on rootschat. Actually I use a PC as well but that's for something completly different.
deadants
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'Cookies' are not in general a good thing to allow on your computer.
They allow the 'planter'of the cookie to track your use of the internet and of all the sites you visit.
Cookies are an essential part of websites, and they do not allow other websites to track your useage of the other sites you visit. They are generally used just to keep you "remembered" on a site, so that settings are set for the next time you visit, or even very basically so that you can navigate from page to page.
Large "pornrings" are generally on massive webservers and they share tracking cookies so they can serve up even more filth and target adverts according to your browsings... Naturally, we wouldn't expect any of our users to be using such sites, so they should not be concerned about how these companies operate. On the plus side, the police can use cookies to catch people looking at things they shouldnt.
Our cookie is called rootschatcom, it just stores your RootsChat userid number and the current date so that you do not need to login each time, or each time you change pages. This, and to credit adverts to publishers, is the use for the great majority of cookies for almost every website.
Trystan
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Cookies are not "essential" to websites - useful very possibly, but not essential.
My problem with cookies are the ones generated by groups like 'casalmedia' who spawn cookies from lots of different sites, including otherwise reputable shareware sites and even a genealogy software site recently (can't remember which one offhand).
They don't store just one cookie, ether, three or four is about usual. The only purpose of these cookies seems to be to help bombard me with popup adverts.
I DO accept cookies, but usually only from sites where they tell me up front that they use cookies, why they use them and what info they hold.
In this regard RootsChat should be held up as a model of good practice.
Adrian
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On a similar subject Trystan, can you help with this: I decided to clear up a lot of my files inc cookies, as your aware you can't tell which is what, so I (I knew that I'd have to redo all my passwords etc) just thought to hell just delete the lot no problem, I've redone all my passwords
Anyway I have been on to all my sites in the favorites and now have the cookies I want ------------- if I save a copy in a different file will I be able to at some time later delete all superflous cookies and replace with the ones I have copied, it would save a lot of time
Andrew
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A useful utility for clearing out the garbage is a program called "Ccleaner" ... one of its tricks is that you can tell it what cookies you want to keep and it will clear out the rest for you when you run a sweep.
Ccleaner is freeware and available to download from http://www.ccleaner.com/
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)
If any user is uncertain about using any utility which could potentially change their system please do not use them.
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Hi Trystan and all technical people,
I had a problem last week of suddenly not being able to log in (after a long and uninterrupted relationship with RootsChat which automatically logs me in so I don't have to think about it :) )
I had an exchange of emails with Trystan, since I couldn't log in to post a question, and finally got back in after manually deleting what appeared to be an old cookie.
Now it happened again this morning, so I carefully checked what I needed to do to clear it and I'd really appreciate anyone who can make sense of it for me ;D
I normally use Firefox as my browser which works brilliantly for me (now I've loaded all the add-ins I need like DJVU etc) I've double checked it and it allows cookies, or at least it says it does BUT I deleted the Rootschat cookie manually as before and still Rootschat couldn't log me in. Then I used IE, logged in, closed IE, reopened Firefox and was away again, as you can see, since I'm typing this.
So what I'm asking is this - why was Firefox unable to save the Rootschat cookie when IE obviously could? (The option 'Allow sites to set cookies' is checked in Firefox)
I've just seen a similar posting of newbie's to do with the the family relatives site that might or might not be a sympton of the same thing......
Any ideas anyone? I don't really want to keep IE on my desktop purely in order to set cookies for a few sites - Firefox seems to be saving them for some sites but not others?
Angela
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check your settings
1. under tools options cookies and make sure that the option "unless I have removed the cookie" is not set
2. check the settings under cache and make sure it is not set to remove your cookies when you exit Firefox.
3. go to exceptions (under cookies) and type in Rootschat address and click on allow.
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cookies 3
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Hi Falkyrn
Thanks for spending time on this for me ;D
The depressing bit is that what you describe is what I always had (and still have) in my settings. It isn't making any sense....... :'(
Thanks again
Angela
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Hi again Falkyrn
Slight amendment to what I said above - I'm using Windows2000 and my Firefox Options doesn't have the number of cookie clearing options your screen snapshots show.
However, what I do have is in line with your description ;)
Thanks again
Angela
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The third option is not found under cookies but is found under cache settings ... it should be there regardless of the operating system as firefox is pretty standard across the different operating systems.
Another possible villain is if you have a firewall running ..... some of them hve privacy settings which also control cookies it may be worthwhile checking that if you have one installed. (if you don't and have broadband, I would recommend that you get one)
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Oops :-[ ..... I should have asked What version of Firefox are you running ?
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Hi Falkyrn
Sorry about the delay in replying - had to go out ::)
The Firefox version I'm using appears to be 1.0.7 - I only downloaded it 2 or 3 months ago - should I be on another version?
This is what I have for cookies and cache -
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Hi Falkyrn
Sorry about the big spaces - forgot to crop the image....
Also forgot to say I'm running this particular machine behind a hardware firewall. I can't really see that this would affect Firefox more than IE?
Thanks for your input - I really appreciate this :)
Angela
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Just for info,
RootsChat logged me out while I was still on line sometime in the past half hour and I've had to go through the process again (delete the cookie, start up IE, log in Rootschat, close IE, open up firefox and I'm back) ::)
This is driving me nuts.....
Angela
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Angela,
Perhaps if you try this link, and let us know if you see the rootschatcom cookie or not:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/cookie.php
(Don't post the actual information that you see though as somebody else could login as you)
Trystan
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Hi Trystan,
Sorry about the delay - I was doing the bathroom tiling. Left myself logged on though and was still logged on when I came back.
I tried the link and have appear to have both entries as per the example.....
Curiouser and curiouser....
.... Its not that I'm paranoid or anything but....
..............Does someone in RootsChat not like me?
(Only joking!)
Angela
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Try updating Firefox ... the latest version is 1.5 .... the screen shots were from that version.
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Right!
Now I'm on Firefox 1.5 but the options look just the same as they did before, except that they're on tabs instead of a list.
I think the pretty screens you had, Falkyrn, must just be for XP. Anyway, I'm just waiting for my session to disappear again and it could take anything from a few hours to a few weeks judging by recent experience.
Ho hum.....
I wish I understood this....
Angela
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I think the pretty screens you had, Falkyrn, must just be for XP
Possibly or possibly the interface theme I added from the downloads .... much better looking than the standard one.
It's strange that IE is picking up the cookie but not firefox .. please keep us updated.
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Hi Falkyrn
That's what puzzles me too - I much prefer Firefox to IE and it's worked really well everywhere. This is the only problem I've found and it doesn't make sense at all.....
If you can cope with the tediousness of all this (my goodness, you are patient ::) ) I will definitely keep you posted.
I have a feeling this problem is awfully like watching paint dry.....
Thanks so much for not leaving me alone with it!
Angela
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This is on the Firefox support site
1. In IE, "File -> Import and Export -> Export Cookies".
2. Open newly exported "cookies.txt" in a text editor and put a period before every line that starts with a domain. So a line starting with "altavista.com TRUE / FALSE 1388491200 AV_ALL 1" will become ".altavista.com TRUE / FALSE 1388491200 AV_ALL 1"
3. Then, move the "cookies.txt" file to your profile folder.
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The main support site for Firefox and cookies is at
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Cookies
from that it would appear that Firefox and IE stoe their cookies in completely different places which makes the behaviour of yours even stranger ... still the page may give some further insights.
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I've had a look at the page quoted - it doesn't seem to match my system in any way at all....
I have folders as described, but no .slt file as they say.
I can't believe that IE and Firefox actually store cookies in different places - my experience is quite repeatable and gives me RootsChat access in Firefox only after IE has accessed it.
Perhaps this is a 'sign' that I should be spending less time on RootsChat and more time working..... ::) If this problem continues I shall give RootsChat a break for a while - life's too short ;D
Thanks for all the suggestions - I'm hanging in there ....
Angela
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Having just had some problems with cookies myself, and been searching around my hard disk,
I can categorically state that IE and Firefox do store their cookies in different places !!
(Not only that, but IE stores each cookie individually as a file, whereas Firefox merges them all into one text file !!)
Which means that if I say in Firefox "delete cookies", then the IE cookies are still there, and vice versa.
Which means that if I log on to RootsChat in Firefox and then start IE and go to RootsChat it tells me I am not logged in, and vice versa.
Just for fun, the next time I have a bit of time to spare (??) I will load Netscape and Opera and see what happens there.
(I need to load other browsers anyway, because if you have a website, you need to test in as many browsers as possible - after all, you don't know what the "customer" is using !!)
Bob
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You're quite right Bob, as usual ;D
I just looked at cookies within Firefox Tools and they do look quite different from IE.
However, when I opened RootsChat this morning, I was back to being a guest again so I decided not to do what I did before (I know it shouldn't work as IE and Firefox have different cookies, but it DID, honestly. As a developer myself I know just how implausible that sounds coming from a user so I don't really blame anyone if they don't believe it :'()
I went into the Firefox Cookies list and deleted the Rootschat one, closed the browser, reopened it and got back into RootsChat fine. It will be interesting to see how long things last and whether I have to do this every few hours as before......
Angela
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Angela,
Next time you are shown as a guest, if you try
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/cookie.php again and see what it says.
Trystan
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As an aside, I can repeat this error if I set the date on the computer to 2030, then open up Firefox, because by then the cookie has 'expired'
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Thanks Trystan
I'll do that! Mind you, given the way these things work, it may not happen again now people are watching it ::)
Thanks everybody for their input on this one - at least I've learned more about both how cookies actually work and also more about Firefox than I knew before....
Angela
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OK folks, it happened again - fired up Rootschat, got the Guest login, errored if I tried to login as me.
I've copied the contents of the Cookies in a PM to Trystan, deleted them, closed the browser, reopened, fired up Rootschat, come up as Guest, successfully logged in.
At least I can reliably get in, but why is it dumping me every few hours? Prior to this week it dumped me once the previous week and I've had no problems at all in all the months prior to that. My virus and spyware checks are up to date and I'm completely flummoxed ::)
Going to bed now - bet I'll have to do it all again in the morning......
Has anyone had any inspiration?
Angela
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I've tried duplicating the problem unsuccessfully. It's possible that a corrupted cookie is causing the problem you could try a program CCleaner which amongst other things can give you a complete list of all cookies on your system (Firefox and IE) and if necessary delete them.
http://www.ccleaner.com/
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Hi Falkyrn
Thanks for that - I think I'll get hold of CCleaner as it could well be handy for other sites too. I run AdAware, which seems to get rid of dodgy tracking cookies for me, but keepijng an eye on what is arriving on my machine seems to be very useful :)
As it happens, I got in fine this morning. Trystan looked at my cookies and it appears I had 2 - one for December and one for January. I only seem to have one at the moment, so all is well and I'm keeping my fingers crossed ::)
Thanks again for your help and support
Angela
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I am having the same problems that Angela had. When I try to log on I get a message to check my cookie settings. Deleting the rootschat cookie and the logging on by entering my username and password works, but I have to do this EVERY time I want to use Rootschat. The machine is a PC with Windows XP and IE6 plus Norton antivirus 2006. I have a laptop with Norton 2005 and this works fine - ie it rembembers me when I log in. Could this problem be anything to do with Norton and if so what settings should I be looking for?
Alex_Wood
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My 5 year old Windows ME operating system I've set-up for cookies as follows.
Start tab> Settings> Control Panel> Internet Options>Privacy tab>advanced,
and check Over-ride Auto Cookie Handling. On this same box are 3 options under name First Party [cookies]. I've checked Accept.
Under another 3 options is name Third Party [cookies], I've checked Block. Had it so for nearly 5 years, and all been well.
Gragareth.
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Not read all of this topic - but I can get in fine on IE6 but not Firefox - I could until I "played" around with the cookies on Firefox - must have deleted RC one!!
Now I get a message saying to check cookie settings - which I think are correct - I can only get into RC now using IE6.
Cheers
Keith
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Hi Keith
When this happened to me, I had to View the cookies and find the ones for RootsChat. There should be 2 - one expiring at the end of the session and the other expiring around 2012.
If, like me, the second cookie has an expired date that is past, you wont be able to get in. Delete it and it should recreate properly when you next go in.
Good luck
Angela
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Hi Angela,
Works fine now - I deleted some cookies "just for fun" - but particularly left the RC one in!! ::) ::)
Keith
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Hi Keith
Glad it's working! Now I'm used to Firefox, I MUCH prefer it to IE and wouldn't dream of going back. The only dificulty is finding the right add-in to view graphical data on the of the sites - took me a while to find the right one for OriginsNetwork ;D
Best wishes
Angela
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Hi Angela,
Yes that is part of the trouble with switching browers - I like the "tab" feature on Firefox - I can open 4 census records in one window - but can't use the "hand" to move up and down or the enlarge part of text - as in IE6!!
Never satisfied me!!
Keith
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All this is way, way beyond me. I just follow the policy used by Ed Bott in one of those arm-breaking Microsoft books:
'I cannot think of any good reason for a third party company to keep track of information about me, so I prefer to reject all third party cookies with no questions asked ...'
He then goes on to say he likes to monitor first party cookies the first time he sees them.
I use IE7 and have to say, probably very unwisely, that I haven't encountered any probs with this strategy.
Colin (a bear of very small brain)
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Help
I cant unblock my cookies that i never blocked :(
This afternoon i went to my usual Printer in provider to order some ink.They said the cookies had been blocked and they need them to see what i have in my basket.Without cookies i cant continue with my order i have never done anythink with cookies before.Never had a problem.i have tried everything i can,followed all the instructions on the on my computer but i still cant get my order through.To order thing on-line you need cookies.I have done internet options in the privacy tab and according to a test my cookies are not blocked ??? I did use a new program i downloaded called regscrub though ::).I thought it was good because my computer is now a lot faster.Did i get rid of something when i clicked fix it ???
Celia
I have just checked the stinkyink website again it says there is error on page.Do you think it's them and not me :-\
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Just as an update i had to send a cheque in the end ;D
Celia
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Hi Angela,
Yes that is part of the trouble with switching browers - I like the "tab" feature on Firefox - I can open 4 census records in one window - but can't use the "hand" to move up and down or the enlarge part of text - as in IE6!!
Never satisfied me!!
Keith
Keith, If you hold down the control key and rotate the wheel on your mouse, you can enlarge text etc. Try it & see what you think. I never use IE
Mavals
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I have been having a problem for weeks and weeks now with staying logged in :'( :'(
Have checked and my computer is accepting cookies.
Very frustrating - any ideas anyone. Have never had trouble before........ ::)
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hi I've just started and am addicted to searching , I've got the free trial , I want it gone and full :-X :-[membership" I'm waiting on my new card, it will only b a few days, but I'm keen as mustard to go!!!!