Editing Encyclopedia:FAQ/Technical (section)

==Why was I automatically logged out?==
:This could be a result of your cookie, browser cache, or firewall/Internet security settings. Or, to quote [[User:Tim Starling|Tim Starling]] (referring to a question about "remembering password across sessions"):
{{talk quote box|
"The kind of session isn't a network session strictly speaking, it's an HTTP session, managed by PHP's [http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.session.php session handling functions]. This kind of session works by setting a cookie, just like the "remember password" feature. The difference is that the session cookie has the "discard" attribute set, which means that it is discarded when you close your browser. This is done to prevent others from using your account after you have left the computer.

The other difference is that PHP sessions store the user ID and other such information on the server side. Only a "session key" is sent to the user. The remember password feature stores all required authentication information in the cookie itself. On our servers, the session information is stored in [[memcached]], a system for non-durable (unreliable) caching. Session information may occasionally be lost or go missing temporarily, causing users to be logged out. ''The simplest workaround for this is to use the remember password feature'', as long as you are not worried about other people using the same computer."
|source=[[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)]] on May 4, 2005 (italics added)}}

:In other words: click the "remember me" box when logging in.

:See also [[Help:Logging in]].