I'm having a problem staying logged in. I have my login set to 'forever' but every time I click on a link from an email, I discover that I've been logged out again. Do I need to add/delete a cookie or something?

Hmmm.... very odd.  No I can't think of anything that would be affecting this. I never click on email links and in fact don't have notifications on any thing since I am here so much.   I'll have to give that a try. I'll set this post to notify on replies so I can maybe figure out what is happening.  You want the cookie on  your computer.  That is how the program knows it is you.

You know the only thing I can think is that maybe when you click an email link it want's you to confirm it is you for security reasons. It does that for me when I want to do any admin work.  Are you just getting the password field or is it showing the username and password field. If it is just the password field then it is a security thing.

I know I want the cookie - but I have this thing happen where every time on Etsy I go to check my messages, and the site dies for me. The only way around it is to delete a certain cookie.

Anyway, when I click the link I get taken to the thread, I'm just logged out. If I want to reply, I have to login, close the page, then open the thread in a new tab. For some reason refreshing (even F5 refreshing) ensures I stay logged out and closing the page and starting again on a new one is the only way to view the thread logged in. (So I'm not being taken to a login page when I click the link, just the logged-out version of the thread)

It's an intermittent problem but it's happening 90% of the time. This is only a recent thing, so it is most likely browser-related due to new computer? I'd say the login is just timing out, but since I always select 'forever' I don't know why I'd be logged out again a few hours later.

Not sure why that is happening. You could try deleting the cookie for the site and then going through the login process so it creates a new one. For some reason I didn't get notified on this reply even though I selected to be notified.  Yet again another mystery to look into.   I am pretty busy the next two weeks working a project so don't know how much time I'll have to research all this till later.

No problems. I just thought I'd bring it up in case it wasn't browser-related. I'll try deleting the cookies and see how I go.

It must be browser related. I just got the notification on this via email and used it to come to the site and I am still logged in. If it continues, check and see if the cookie is still there right after you come to the site via the email link.

Ok, will do. The problem is 'ghosting', appearing and disappearing in a typical fashion of: when you ask for help, the problem disappears.

I wonder if you have something on  your computer that clears out your cookies from time to time?  That could create a "ghosting" issue.  I know I have some clean up programs on my computer I use that actually have the option to clear out internet cache and cookies but I have that option deactivated.

Hmm, quite possible. Maybe a virus-scanner is causing problems. But then I don't think they clean cookies automatically (unless Windows has some sort of annoying setting that does it). I will check that too.

I just had an interesting discovery. I noticed that whenever I get a notification via email *and* get logged out, the first thread I open logs me out, but any further clicks from other emails keeps me logged in.

Ie. I clicked on the first email notification for A thread, I was logged out. Clicking on notifications for B thread and C thread, I'm logged in. If I want to reply on A thread I need to login, then go to the relevant thread or close the page; if I want to reply on B or C, I don't need to re-login. If I reply to B or C thread first, I'll still need to re-login to reply to A.