Problem with drupal's log in system ?

Hi,
My site is experiencing some problems with the login system of drupal.
Whenever i login and go to another page of the website i get automatically logged out.And also when i try to add comments or any new post it takes me to the access denied page and i have to login again even when i am logged in.Also when i log out of the website and again open the website after few minutes or hours i get automatically logged in.
I dont know what the problem is.Can anyone tell me what should i do ? Please.Its affecting my site users.
My site is www.communityofrobots.com
My site is running on drupal 6.20

 

Go back to Drupal default theme and disable all extra modules. Just use Drupal default modules. Now check if your problem is solved or not.

 

Tried but no success.
any other reason ?

 

What changes did you made what could effect this problem (did you made any updates, or installed new modules etc)? Or did this suddenly happen?

Does this problem only effects the users? Or also (some) nodes, books, blocks, taxonomy etc?

If caching is enabled, did you tried to disable it? (This would be the most logical if you have it enabled.)

Is the problem occurring in all standard browsers? (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari)

 

Yes i installed some new modules but a month ago i guess.
I have tried chrome,firefox,IE but still same problem.
The caching is disabled since the drupal installation (does it need to be enabled ?)
There is always a message in the admin section that "your drupal has security update".(can this be a problem ?)

 

I saw today that my theme is 6.x to 1.6 and drupal version is 6.20.
I guess this is the problem ?

 

Well Aap asked you to change your theme to the default one (Garland) and disable all modules which aren't in the core. You said it didn't made any difference so then it is no theme or module problem.

The security message occur due a new version 6.22 how ever this shouldn't influence the login system.

Does the status report page say anything special?

 

No.It only shows that security update available for your drupal version and a module(Panels).I am using panels 3.8 and the version recommended is 3.9
Thats it.

 

Mine seems to be working fine.. Was it working fine originally?

 

yes it was working fine originally.
Btw i had installed smfforum and merged the login system with drupal. But after few days i deleted smfforum and changed the settings to earlier settings.
So this would have messed with the login system of drupal ?

 

Could be the problem. That's why you never should experiment with a live website (at least not ones with any impact).

Did you (in the mean while) already upgraded your website to the newest version of Drupal?

A solution could be: make a back-up of the content then do a clean re-install of Drupal and put the back-up back. Just try this on a test environment first, meaning a local webserver for example when it works you can do it on the live site.

Just make sure you don't start experimenting with the live site it can make things worse! Just test it on a save set-up first.

 

Ok but as i have never done that thing before i would go with someone experienced as i dont want to lose any content/database etc of the website.
I am looking for someone who can do it for cheap.
That said if i will do it myself then is this the process ?
1.First take the backup of the existing site i.e public_html/
2.Re-install the drupal(same version)
3.upload the backup files to public_html\ and extract

Is this all about ?

 

No, download XAMPP install it on your computer (assuming you use Windows). With this package you can run a local webserver Apache + MySQL (excellent for testing).
Xampp homepage

Install this module on your online website (to be honest if you hadn't installed this module yet - its a must have!):
Back-up and migrate

When those two things are done:
1. Create a back-up of your website.
2. Duplicate your website (of a clean install of Drupal) on your local machine for testing.

You don't have to worry about screwing up the database because you are working now in a test environment.

And you should always create daily or weekly (or even both) back-ups of your website. The amount of back-ups depends on the activity on your website.

When your website works locally fine. Put then the website (the online one) in maintenance mode and create another back-up so you have the latest version. Then you can start restoring the website, chance on loosing anything is minimal. If you follow logic and procedures even none...

 

I changed the php memory limit in settings.php from 512M to 256M and now it is working fine.
Lets hope it continues to work fine.
Btw thanks a lot for your help dennisb

 

No problem Kawal.

And I still recommend you to install the back-up and migrate module. As you can read on the project page you can see it's a very advanced back-up tool.

A (good) back-up can save a lot of time!