Time outs while editing a document

mikev

Hey ITFlow,

Just checking to see if I can remove the timeout or increase it of logged in users. Here's what happened to why I am asking…

I was editing a existing document that only had a short amount of content in it already but I spent at least another 30 ish minutes going out of the window and back in adding screenshots and notes to each step. When I went to go click the save button it logged me bringing me to the login page. I went back to the document and lost all my changes it was super frustrating.

Any suggestions?

johnny

Did you install ITFlow via script on a VPS? or are you on a shared hosting platform?

johnny

any info @mikev

afiadam

Hi @johnny, I'm not sure if this is exactly what @mikev is asking about, but I've also noticed that the timeout for my ITFlow login is pretty quick. Was searching the forum to see if there was a way to change the timeout duration when I stumbled across this thread. I've had a few times that I start making an entry, step away for a few minutes due to a phone call or something like that and when I come back I finish filling out the forms, hit save, and it redirects me to the login screen and all the info I typed was lost.

johnny

@afiadam It sounds like its an issue with PHP session configuration or maybe a proxy issue

Lets get some details on your setup:

Are you using a Proxy like Cloudflare?
Did you install via Install script or custom?
are you on a shared web hosting platform?

afiadam

johnny My instance at least is a self hosted local server with on-site DNS as well. It was installed on a Debian server with the APT file rather than with the script.

johnny

@afiadam

okay so thats good so im guessing your using http and not https when connecting since its local

What Browser are you using, could there be any browser plugins that you are using that would wipe out cookies after a period of time?

afiadam

johnny We are using HTTPS actually. The computer I'm on right now is accessing it locally, but it is available over WAN if needed. I have the external DNS running through our DNS provider (network solutions if that matters), but it isn't routed through a proxy that I know of.

I'm using Chrome without any extensions that clear cookies that I know of. All my other sites work fine for login sessions.

johnny

how about the server date and time does it match your computer date and time and timezone?

afiadam

johnny Just checked and the server was set to UTC rather than EST. I'll give it a few days and see if there's any change.

mikev

@johnny
Sorry I haven't chimed in yet or responded to you I was a bit pre-occupied elsewhere for a bit. Exactly what afiadam described earlier happened to me similarly:

I've had a few times that I start making an entry, step away for a few minutes due to a phone call or something like that and when I come back I finish filling out the forms, hit save, and it redirects me to the login screen and all the info I typed was lost.

My install is on Debian 12 fresh with your new install script it worked out very well. I have cloudflare managing my domain but I've had the proxy feature off for the itflow. record so it exposes directly to the IP (By accident for some time) forgot to turn it on for this new install so we haven't been using the proxy.

I am using latest Google Chrome on Windows 11

This happened from my PC outside the network so using our public domain https://itflow.mydomainexample.com while logged in when that happened.

I haven't recently tested this again and my staff are just getting onboarded into ITFlow so I suppose I may have some more insight on this further a little later on if it happens again I can update you. The server Debian 12 is a VM in our oklahoma datacenter and sync'd to Central Time on the OS it seems like that date/time appears to be all good, just looked into that as well.

johnny

That might be the issue, thanks for reporting back @afiadam

afiadam

It's hard for me to tell if it's any better. It's definitely still shorter than I would like even if it did get better though. Is there any way to adjust that timeout manually so I could make it like 8 hours if I wanted to?

Edit: Even if that wasn't possible I'd definitely like if it redirected itself upon timeout. The most annoying part is probably going to a session that's already timed out, doing something in it, hitting save, and it sends you back to the login screen. If it went to the login automatically I'd prefer that.

johnny

We are not able to implement anything like that because php handles the session timeouts at the moment.

However this can be configured in the php.ini file

The option is session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440

which is 24 mins in seconds. You can bump this up even higher if you prefer.

Modify the the file and restart Web server and or PHP service.

wrongecho

See https://forum.itflow.org/d/358-session-timeout-redirection/13