"My Workspace" button went haywire!

I hope this is the right forum. "My Workspace" button went haywire! If I click

it I am told I am somebody else [Workspace for Shafie Ebrahim], my portfolio

is missing, and worse - PN tinks I'm not a subscriber anymore!

Seriously, how do "we" fix this?

PS: Did the reboot/logout/login thing - no use.

Thank you.

JH de Beer

There is a known problem with a particular ISP in South Africa. The problem you are reporting has been reported over the last two years by a few other photo.net members with that ISP, and by nobody else in the world. That ISP is probably running a faulty proxy server that is essentially returning pages from its cache, WITH the cookies. That is a no-no. This effectively logs you in as the other person, since being logged in on photo.net means presenting the proper cookie. If you noticed, the other Workspace that you ended up in is that of another photo.net member from South Africa with the same ISP as you. Probably other people with your ISP have from time to time found themselves in your workspace. Doesn't it strike you as rather an amazing coincidence that the people who are landing in other member's Workspaces all have the same South African ISP? If there was a photo.net bug, why would it drop you into the Workspace of someone who just happened to share your ISP and not some random other person? And why would it be always the same South African ISP, and no other ISP?

You might be able to rectify the problem by logging out of photo.net and logging back in, but this might only work after a wait, and it could happen again.

There isn't really anything that I can do about this. It needs to be taken up with the ISP. I've told this same thing to some other people in this situation. Apparently they didn't follow my suggestion, perhaps thinking I was just brushing them off, or they didn't get anywhere with the ISP.

If you would like to try your luck with the Technical Support at the ISP, I'd be happy to work through the problem with them via email or phone. But it will probably be hard to convince them that it is their problem and not ours. The reason that I know it isn't our problem, is that it is literally the case that every time this problem is reported it turns out to be a South African member of photo.net with that ISP. The problem gets reported every few months, and people are always amazed when my first question is: are you in South Africa? even when there has been no mention of South Africa up to that point. If you hadn't put (RSA) after your signature, I would be asking *you* if you are in South Africa.

Brian

Thank you for the detailed response. I will definitely not brush the advice off - I want to be on photo.net, I need to be. While I have your attention - it's a fantastic site.

This morning my workspace is sorted out. I don't know if the strange name is from SA, there was no other account detail. But I take your word for it - and I know nothing about IT.

But, since this morning all my images are gone. And from where I sit also those of everybody else's portfolios or images I try to access. Did this usually happen as well?

I will be trying to dial-up through another ISP to see if that works better.

Thanks again Brian.

Regards

JH

Hi JH and Brian

I was pleased to see this link to the forum on your home page, JH, as every evening when I log in I end up on your 'Workspace'page!

The way I resolve it, I refresh the page and my Workspace then comes up no problem. If you are also with M-Web (or sub-ISP's), maybe it is a problem with the Propel Accelerator and the caching it does? I do not know.

Cheers,

Clive