Question [Resolved] "Code not correct"/session timeout

Have you ever had the misfortune, when composing a message in Kunena (or Fireboard) over a long period of time, and at the critical moment when you click the "Submit" button you lose all of that hard work with "Code not correct" ... and you find yourself logged out of the website?

I suspect the answer lies in adjusting the session lifetime in Joomla but I would appreciate anyone else's thoughts/explanation on the matter.

Adjusting the session lifetime up/down is a two-edged sword, in my opinion:

• On the one hand, because Joomla has a problem correctly calculating the number of guests visiting the site, if you keep the session lifetime low (15 minutes) then you are more likely to get a better snapshot of how many people are visiting the site (but not logged-in) at any point in time. However, it can also mean that your site members will have to login more frequently (discussed here ).
• On the other hand, setting the session lifetime too high may incorrectly show people logged-in, who aren't, including an absurdly high number of people visiting the site.

These are primarily issues for the Joomla website manager, but they can confuse your members.

I'm particularly interested to get to the bottom of the "code not correct" situation and implement an appropriate, balanced workaround. If, as I've read elsewhere , Kunena "does nothing special with sessions", is the problem overcome by adjusting the Joomla session lifetime or some other parameter in the Kunena configuration?

The only other possibilities, that I'm aware of, are the settings for:

1. User edit time: (default 0) "Set to 0 for unlimited time, else window in seconds from post or last modification to allow edit."
2. User Edit Grace Time: "Default 600 [seconds], allows storing a modification up to 600 seconds after edit link disappears."

These descriptions aren't very helpful for us to decide how we should modify the settings ... or even whether we should!

I should point out that although I haven't conducted detailed time trials, and my recollection is somewhat hazy, I get the "code not correct" situation if I've been composing a message for longer than 30 minutes which is, coincidentally, the same period I've set the Joomla session lifetime value. I'm reasonably sure that I can compose a message over a 10-30 minute period ...

As a workaround: If you have session timeout, add new tab/window to your browser and log in. Go back to your post (first tab) and hit reload.

Good points you have in there. But I'm not sure if we can do anything to Joomla session timeout. We need to investigate this at some point.

But the question is: why don't you change session timeout to a long time, but use a shorter time in the statistics? It's easy to change stats to show only those users who have been active. say, in 15 minutes.

Matias wrote:

As a workaround: If you have session timeout, add new tab/window to your browser and log in. Go back to your post (first tab) and hit reload.

I agree, there are several workarounds such as opening a new window or copying (CTRL-C] the "bbcode" you've been editing (to save you the trouble of retyping it if you're timed-out and have to login again). However, these aren't very satisfactory (nor easy to explain) to the average user who's likely to be furious that they've lost half-an-hour's precious time! :ohmy:

Matias wrote:

Good points you have in there. But I'm not sure if we can do anything to Joomla session timeout. We need to investigate this at some point.

It's not merely "investigating" what's possibly wrong with Joomla, it's more that we need understand how to best configure the site with what we have.

If you examine Joomla's default parameters, Global Configuration » System » Session Settings:

• Session Lifetime: 15 minutes
• Session Handler: None | Database

Goodness only knows what's are more appropriate settings than the default ones! :ohmy:

The other matter that needs clarification (and may shed some light on the "code not correct" dilemma) is how best to confiure the Kunena parameters:

I asked for information about what might be more appropriate values for the two settings I've highlighted in the above image. Any suggestions?

Matias wrote:

Why don't you change session timeout to a long time, but use a shorter time in the statistics? It's easy to change stats to show only those users who have been active. say, in 15 minutes.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what statistics component can be set independently of the Joomla session lifetime.

What I said before, about the upside and downside of setting a long session lifetime, is illustrated below:


How else can we allow a reasonable amount of time to compose a message in a site's forum without artificially "exaggerating" the above information?

I agree you. These are really something we need to fix, but unfortunately we have only limited hours in a day.

I don't believe that we can do much for the Joomla session timeout, because of it's handled by Joomla core. If someone has solved this problem, I would like to know it too.

I don't know that user edit time and edit grace time means. Maybe fxstein knows it, I have to ask him.

No stats component seems to be independent from Joomla session lifetime, but I've modified some by myself to show users that have been active in 30 minutes.

Matias wrote:

I agree [with] you. These are really something we need to fix, but unfortunately we have only limited hours in a day.

I don't believe that we can do much for the Joomla session timeout, because of it's handled by Joomla core. If someone has solved this problem, I would like to know it too.

Thank you for getting back to me on this matter. It's not so much a case of something that needs to be fixed, it's more that it's something we need to better understand so that we can control the behaviour.

If you think of the session timeout/"code not correct" issue as a way of saying to your users "you have a certain amount of time to compose a message for posting into the forum but if you exceed that time you will have to login again" then this is a perfectly reasonable position. We don't want our users remaining logged-in indefinitely, or allowed an infinite amount of time to prepare a message for posting. There need to be limits.

My question relates to how can these limits be controlled. Something is already controlling things. How is this done?

While we're asking fxtein to answer the questions about User Edit Time and User Edit Grace Time, perhaps we can also get an understanding of the Kunena parameter Session Lifetime and whether this, too, has any bearing on the "code not correct"/timeout behaviour?

I wonder if anyone as sorted out the "Code not correct" issue? Is the issue related to any of the following settings:

• Joomla
  • Session Lifetime
• Kunena

• Session Lifetime
• User Edit Time
• User Edit Grace Time

... and what purposes do those three Kunena parameters serve anyway?

Can anyone recommend more appropriate values for these parameters than the default values?

Thanks