Question for the Experts: Cookies Sessions problem in IE8

[milanbenes]

Afternoon All,

Boss has tasked me to solve a problem, and being lazy I thought I'd outsource it to my geeky friends on the CUK forum


Problem:

IE8

When we háve Browsers open to different Web Based applications that we support, if we have a Dev and Quality and a Prod browser opened for the same application we are getting problems with sessions getting confused.

This never used to happen with IE6.


Has anything changed in IE8 with regard to sharing Session Cookies between Internet Explorers which are opened on the desktop.

I mean with IE6 we could have an IE opened and logged into a Dev application, another open and logged into a QA App and another open and logged into Prod and everything worked fine.

Now with IE8, if we are working on a Dev App and need to look at Prod we been to close all Internet Explorers and clear cookies before open Prod otherwise the sessions all get fecked up.


Why's that then ?

Ta

Milan.

[mudskipper]

Afternoon All,

Boss has tasked me to solve a problem, and being lazy I thought I'd outsource it to my geeky friends on the CUK forum


Problem:

IE8

When we háve Browsers open to different Web Based applications that we support, if we have a Dev and Quality and a Prod browser opened for the same application we are getting problems with sessions getting confused.

This never used to happen with IE6.


Has anything changed in IE8 with regard to sharing Session Cookies between Internet Explorers which are opened on the desktop.

I mean with IE6 we could have an IE opened and logged into a Dev application, another open and logged into a QA App and another open and logged into Prod and everything worked fine.

Now with IE8, if we are working on a Dev App and need to look at Prod we been to close all Internet Explorers and clear cookies before open Prod otherwise the sessions all get fecked up.


Why's that then ?

Ta

Milan.

Are your different environments running on the same URL?

How are sessions managed - do you have some sort of state server that's shared between environments?

The answers should help Nick resolve your problem...

[eek]

Because of the way it ie8 handles multiple instances.

In ie6 if you opened a new instance from the command line it opened a new instance, but opening a second window from the ie6 file menu kept that window in the same instance.

IE8 does it sensible and checks to see if an instance is already open. If 1 is open it adds a new window to the instance and hence it shares the cookie information.

The solution is actually simple but its also chargeable.

[mudskipper]

Because of the way it ie8 handles multiple instances.

In ie6 if you opened a new instance from the command line it opened a new instance, but opening a second window from the ie6 file menu kept that window in the same instance.

IE8 does it sensible and checks to see if an instance is already open. If 1 is open it adds a new window to the instance and hence it shares the cookie information.

The solution is actually simple but its also chargeable.

But only if they're on the same domain. Prod shouldn't be on the same domain as dev.

[mudskipper]

But only if they're on the same domain. Prod shouldn't be on the same domain as dev.

Assuming they are, then this might help

Log Into Multiple Accounts At The Same Site With Internet Explorer 8

[eek]

But only if they're on the same domain. Prod shouldn't be on the same domain as dev.

We know that the infrastructure is probably that bad but I was trying to explain the reason why his crap testing solution used to work in IE6 but doesn't any more due to the fact XP allowed multiple instances of IE6 to run at the same time with different cookie stacks, IE8 doesn't.

We don't have enough information to guess what the real circumstances are but I guess the infrastructure looks like:

dev.domain.co.uk
test.domain.co.uk
Welcome*-*Sedo.co.uk (prod)

and all the cookies are attached to *.domain.co.uk due to need to pass details between servers.

[milanbenes]

Are your different environments running on the same URL?

no, all have unique fqdn

How are sessions managed - do you have some sort of state server that's shared between environments?

no state server, all separate servers unique


ie6 used to keep sessions and cookies exclusive to an instance of ie6

ie8 seems to make sessions and cookies available to any instance of ie8

how to stope this that's the question


hopefully, Nick the Geek can sort it out and I can take the credit

Milan.

[milanbenes]

eek,

yes in client co, a blue chip household name by the way

all systems are hostname.domain.domain.com as is the case in the .Net world in client co's

so what's the solution ? configure ie to focus on the nth layer of the fqdn ?

Milan.

[eek]

ie8 seems to make sessions and cookies available to any instance of ie8

You can't.

[milanbenes]

Eek the Geek,

you know the answer or not ?

feck's sake

what do you want in return, an apple sticker to put on the front of your dell laptop ?

Milan.