Cookie Pickup Bug?

[Runer112]

For me, the most useful page on Omnimaga is Latest Activity, so when I got my new computer, I made sure that's always the page I start at when navigating to Omnimaga. But when I started doing this, I noticed that navigating straight to that URL and not getting there by clicking the "NEW POSTS" link on another page results in my account not being logged in. This results in annoyances like the post times not being adjusted to my locale, so I have to then click the "NEW POSTS" link to reload the page and pick up my account.

Browser version: Chrome 32.0.1700.72 m. I don't notice this issue when directly navigating to any other pages on Omnimaga. This issue also doesn't seem to occur at all in my quick test with Internet Explorer 11.0.9600.16476. So the fact that it only occurs on one page suggests to me that it's a site bug, but the fact that it doesn't occur in another browser counters with the suggestion that it's a browser bug.

[Sorunome]

That is pretty weird, i do that all the time and it is working just fine for me.

[DJ Omnimaga]

That is pretty strange. That said, I am using Opera 12.16 so maybe it's a new issue with different browsers. I have this happen on Youtube a lot lately, though.

Back in 2010-11, some DNS misconfiguration caused omnimaga.org and www.omnimaga.org to have different sessions, so you would get logged out when accessing the non-www one. Not sure if DNS issues might be related?

[Sorunome]

The omnimaga.org / www.omnimaga.org having different sessions still exists for me...
EDIT: actually, nvm, without www is a redirect to www now

[Runer112]

www versus no www is definitely the issue. Is this something that can be fixed site-side? Or some easy way I can fix it on my side (other than simply using the different URL, of course)?

[DJ Omnimaga]

On your side, make sure to never forget to use the www and to not click any link that lacks the www. On Omni's side, they would need to fix the sub-domain names.

[Juju]

That can easily be fixed. Either stop using www or make a redirction on the non-www domain to the www subdomain.

[Lunar Fire]

I think it depends on the type of redirection you do with the www and non-www subdomain. If you make both of them point to the same IP and nameservers your browser will not see the difference between www and non-www, just like I did on my domain. For example, you can access the BrainPuff interpreter by entering either http://www.lunarfire.info/brainpuff/ or http://lunarfire.info/brainpuff/. Both lead to the exact same page, but your browser will think those two adresses as being different. After all, I could make www.lunarfire.info point to www.omnimaga.org and lunarfire.info point to my webhost, and there would be no problem at all.

What you would need to do on Omnimaga is a either an HTTP or HTML redirection. The first works by adding a redirection header to replies on requests sent to the non-www domain, and the second would be to add a meta redirection tag in the code of the non-www subdomain. I personally recommend HTTP redirections, as the redirection will be un-noticeable to visitors (versus the HTML redirection where you would see it a second or two).

[DJ Omnimaga]

If we stopped using www, would this hurt or Google ranking, though? (since many sites link to Omni using the www)