Hotmail cookies broken?

The neighbourhood is perplexed about apparently new behaviour by
Hotmail at login.

It *seems* something has changed there. (I'm assured nothing has
changed at the user's end in the time since it all worked as expected
yesterday.)

Today, Hotmail at login demanded that the user "enable cookies".
But I'm told they haven't been disabled. "Nothing has been changed."
And I see no reason to disbelieve this statement.

So, has anyone else in the wider world noticed this changed behaviour
by Hotmail, or is it only the good citizens here in the deep north of
the deep south who've been singled out for special attention?

More to the point -- how can the problem be fixed when it hasn't been
caused?

Unsure whether restricted to, but occurs with MSIE 6 on Windows 9x.

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

I have not had that happen with IE6 and Windows XP Pro, for what it's worth.

"Phred" wrote in message
...
The neighbourhood is perplexed about apparently new behaviour by
Hotmail at login.

It *seems* something has changed there. (I'm assured nothing has
changed at the user's end in the time since it all worked as expected
yesterday.)

Today, Hotmail at login demanded that the user "enable cookies".
But I'm told they haven't been disabled. "Nothing has been changed."
And I see no reason to disbelieve this statement.

So, has anyone else in the wider world noticed this changed behaviour
by Hotmail, or is it only the good citizens here in the deep north of
the deep south who've been singled out for special attention?

More to the point -- how can the problem be fixed when it hasn't been
caused?

Unsure whether restricted to, but occurs with MSIE 6 on Windows 9x.

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

Phred,
Did you run any anti-virus, anti-spyware, or third-party pop-up blocking
programs, that deletes cookies. Or did you clear your cookie/temp internet
files folder. You may have deleted the HotMail cookie then. And the request
for HotMail username/password, is to redownload a new cookie to that folder.
The default error message for not finding the HotMail cookie can be
misleading, stating that you need to enable cookies, when they are already
enabled.

--

Rich/rerat

(RRR News) message rule
Previous Text Snipped to Save Bandwidth When Appropriate



"joe_tide" wrote in message
...
I have not had that happen with IE6 and Windows XP Pro, for what it's worth.

"Phred" wrote in message
...
The neighbourhood is perplexed about apparently new behaviour by
Hotmail at login.

It *seems* something has changed there. (I'm assured nothing has
changed at the user's end in the time since it all worked as expected
yesterday.)

Today, Hotmail at login demanded that the user "enable cookies".
But I'm told they haven't been disabled. "Nothing has been changed."
And I see no reason to disbelieve this statement.

So, has anyone else in the wider world noticed this changed behaviour
by Hotmail, or is it only the good citizens here in the deep north of
the deep south who've been singled out for special attention?

More to the point -- how can the problem be fixed when it hasn't been
caused?

Unsure whether restricted to, but occurs with MSIE 6 on Windows 9x.

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

In article , "RRR_News" wrote:
Phred,
Did you run any anti-virus, anti-spyware, or third-party pop-up blocking
programs, that deletes cookies. Or did you clear your cookie/temp internet
files folder. You may have deleted the HotMail cookie then. And the request

Thanks very much for your interest and response -- but you might have
noticed I'm at Yahoo and the problem is [was] with Hotmail. :-)

for HotMail username/password, is to redownload a new cookie to that folder.
The default error message for not finding the HotMail cookie can be
misleading, stating that you need to enable cookies, when they are already
enabled.

That sounds like a pretty reasonable diagnosis, given that the message
is quite inane in those circumstances!

Whatever the cause, I'm told it had cured itself somehow by sometime
today without user intervention (apart from waiting about 24 hours .
So, while it remains something of a mystery, it is now a trivial
mystery. Thanks again.

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

Today, Hotmail at login demanded that the user "enable cookies".
But I'm told they haven't been disabled. "Nothing has been changed."
And I see no reason to disbelieve this statement.


Well, there are cooking and then there are cookies.

What I mean is that you can have cookies
disabled for

* first party (the url you are going to)
* third party (coming from /going to other url's on the page, eg
advertising)
* permanent
* expiring

You can enable just session cookies, that only last until you turn off the
browser.

eg if you only had session cookies allowed
and hotmail had changed their cookies and it looked like a permanent cookie,
then your browser disabled it.

Brad Hogan wrote:
Today, Hotmail at login demanded that the user "enable cookies".
But I'm told they haven't been disabled. "Nothing has been changed."
And I see no reason to disbelieve this statement.


Well, there are cooking and then there are cookies.

What I mean is that you can have cookies
disabled for

* first party (the url you are going to)
* third party (coming from /going to other url's on the page, eg
advertising)
* permanent
* expiring

You can enable just session cookies, that only last until you turn
off the browser.

eg if you only had session cookies allowed
and hotmail had changed their cookies and it looked like a permanent
cookie, then your browser disabled it.

The only way I found to get around this problem was to abandon the
existing shortcut to my hotmail account, navigate to www.hotmail.com
directly and then sign in as if a new user. I suspect an update to MS
AntiSpyware interfered with the log-in original cookie on my system.

Q

In article , "Quaoar" wrote:
Brad Hogan wrote:
Today, Hotmail at login demanded that the user "enable cookies".
But I'm told they haven't been disabled. "Nothing has been changed."
And I see no reason to disbelieve this statement.

Well, there are cooking and then there are cookies.
What I mean is that you can have cookies disabled for
* first party (the url you are going to)
* third party (coming from /going to other url's on the page, eg
advertising)
* permanent
* expiring
You can enable just session cookies, that only last until you turn
off the browser. eg if you only had session cookies allowed
and hotmail had changed their cookies and it looked like a permanent
cookie, then your browser disabled it.

The only way I found to get around this problem was to abandon the
existing shortcut to my hotmail account, navigate to www.hotmail.com
directly and then sign in as if a new user. I suspect an update to MS
AntiSpyware interfered with the log-in original cookie on my system.

It's interesting. I raised this problem on 4 May 2005, but it
had apparently resolved itself by 5 May. AFAIK things then worked as
expected up until today (9 May) when the problem recurred. Would
really like to know if this is something changing at the Hotmail end,
or some random effect! (Always assuming the user really *hasn't*
changed anything at their end, as claimed.)

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID