Coppermine 1.5.36 PHPBB 3.1.5 Issues during uploads - you do not have permission

[DavidSpivey]

Myself and others have been having issues with what I assume is a cookie sync / cache issue between Coppermine and PHPBB. During multiple upload sessions, the users have been presented (seemingly randomly) with the message "Error - You do not have permission to access this page". This usually occurs after uploads are complete, during the time when users have been tagging and describing files. When we look above this error message, the Login key is showing, meaning coppermine does not think that the user is logged into PHPBB. However, when visiting the forum, the user is logged in, and has proper access to all features. If, after a few moments, the user refreshes a coppermine page, then coppermine will "wake up" and see the user was already logged in. However, the process the user was completing when the error message appeared (usually tagging and describing the uploads) has failed, and needs to be redone.

A similar problem occurs when clearing cookies (or using incognito mode) and logging in as administrator. If I log in and immediately click Config, I get the same error message. On the page where the error message occurs, I can refresh, and everything is cool.

We also have another issue. After bridging coppermine and PHPBB, I see no way to log in as the coppermine admin (for instance to globally change the form token lifetime). When I log out, and try to log in,
I am redirected to the PHPBB login page. When logging in as administrator for the PHPBB forum, I cannot globally change these parameters and see them stick for users.


Coppermine URL: http://bonanzatrails.com/gallery
PHPBB URL: http://bonanzatrails.com/forum
Cookie Prefix: phpbb3_ghjyq
Test account username: Imadummy
Test account password: Dummy123

[DavidSpivey]

EDIT: It is not the form token lifetime I can't seem to get to stick. It's the number of columns per page on the thumbnails view. I can change it to 9 from 3, save it, and go back into config only to see that the change did not stay. It's back to 3 again.

[Αndré]

I couldn't find an obvious configuration glitch. Please grant upload permissions to the test users, so I can test what you described.

[DavidSpivey]

Done. Sorry for that.

[Αndré]

I just uploaded an image and entered a title without an issue: http://bonanzatrails.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=435

Do you know a way to replicate the issue?

[DavidSpivey]

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, the issue crops up seemingly randomly. I have had users who have uploaded entire albums of pictures in batches, and have been successful in describing and tagging the photos. Then, as they attempted to upload another batch, the error occurred. Immediately after tagging and describing the photos, when clicking on (I think) continue, the error would show itself. However, replicating the issue easily seems to be near impossible. I became frustrated just trying to see if I could make the problem occur. Yet if I don't try, it happens. Go figure.

At that time I had already seen that users were taking more time uploading and describing the photos than 15 minutes, so I increased the form token lifetime to an hour. Therefore, the token lifetime is not an issue.

[Αndré]

Please check if you/your users logged in to your board with a "Remember me" session or not. I assume if you don't check "Remember me", the session times out after some time with no activity in the board. E.g. while I logged in to your board yesterday (don't checked "Remember me"), phpBB created 3 cookies which all expire at Thu Sep 15 10:57:20 2016. Today, I'm logged out of your board, though the cookies still exist. I assume phpBB deleted the session in its database in the meantime. Additionally, I assume that phpBB refreshes the session lifetime while your users are active in the board. This doesn't happen if they're browsing just the gallery.

If the above assumption is correct, a "Remember me" session would fix the issue.

[DavidSpivey]

That might make sense, all except for the fact that users who have explicitly used the remember me function (and almost never log out for any reason) are also having the problem.

[Αndré]

Unfortunately, I've currently no other idea.

[DavidSpivey]

Well, thanks for trying at least.