Problems with login from main page

[87accordlxi]

An issue just cropped up today out of nowhere with logging in from the main page. When you arrive at index.php, you appear to be logged out. You can input your username and password in the box, and it logs you in, but then you still appear logged out when viewing index.php. Now, here's what drives me nuts. Go into any forum and all of a sudden you're logged in. Go back to index.php and you're logged out. Can anyone help?

I created a test username so anyone can check it out for themselves.

http://www.3geez.com
username: vb.org_test
pw: testing

[Colin F]

Seems to be a problem with the cookies.
A sessionhash is added to the URL, which would imply that it couldn't set the cookies, but when clicking on a thread, the sessionhash isn't around anymore.

[marc49]

can you give more specifics on where the error is. I'm the owner of the site, but have been away from it for a while now. Since I didn't create the error I have no idea how to fix it. (it's always easier to fix something if you're the one that broke it lol)

[87accordlxi]

I'm almost positive that it is not a template issue because we have styles with templates that we have not edited in years (like that april fool's style, marc). It still logs you out on the main page.

I've updated to 3.5.3 and replaced all of the files with the newest versions, including index.php. Still happens. Something is going on with the cookies, and I am completely lost when it comes to that. All I know is the cookie settings in the CP options menu, and I have tried all of those. Like Colin F said, on the main page when you are "logged out", if you hover over a forum link, the session code is in the URL. Once in a forum and "logged in," the session info disappears from the hyperlinks for individual threads and the main index. Click on a thread, you're logged in, but if you click on the main index link, you're logged out. This is unbelievable.

For whatever reason, it just cannot set or recognize the forum cookies on the main index page. I can't figure out why this suddenly happened, or how to fix it. To anyone familiar with these types of issues, would anything on our webhost's end be causing this?