NickN's dashboard

LinkedIn are clearing doing something aggressive in either tracking or how they maintain session. However, I did experience another phantom issue with Trustfax.com (online fax service). File uploads would consistently fail with an error that the file size was more than 2GB. That issue also disappeared after I switched routers...

It's not LinkedIn. Trust me, I thought it was too. I bet you are using Wi-Fi. If you read this thread, you'll see that a number of people have solved very similar problems simply by (a) connecting to their router with a cable, or (b) using a different router.

I debugged this over a period of many months. I talked it over with web developers and a number of hardware guys. I could replicate the problem across three OS's (XP & OSX 10.4 and 10.5) and six browsers. When I changed my router, the problem was solved.

I'm not sure why LinkedIn reveals this problem, but it isn't their site that's broken, it's some kind of weird handshake issue between your laptop wi-fi and your wi-fi router. Your browsers are losing "session" due to this funkiness.

I didn't believe it either, but I have had zero issues with any browser at their site since I swapped the router.

I spent a lot of time on this. At the end of the day there is something funky going on with the combination of my Wi-Fi router and the Wi-Fi hardware in my laptop. For the technically inclined, I believe the signal is flaking out and I'm losing the session. For some reason LinkedIn is particularly sensitive to this.

I was using a Buffalo router, not a D-Link, and it was NOT just the router -- the laptop hardware was a factor too.

I now have a new router and everything works.

If you are having this problem and clearing the cache doesn't help, try switching off the wi-fi and connecting to your router with a regular network cable. If it works fine, it's a router/wi-fi issue and either replace your router or use the cable...

No. I'm using Buffalo at home, but I have the same problem at work and I believe they are using Cisco gear...

No. I've had no luck and no response from LinkedIn.

The only solution is to use a different laptop, which is ridiculous.

Worse still, I started out as a tech support guy so I should know how to resolve this, but I'm baffled...

But cookies/cache wouldn't survive a new OS install and new hard drive... and I tried deleting both multiple times...

Sorry. Forgot the KEY part.

If I log in from my wife's netbook, running XP and Firefox, I have NO PROBLEMS at all.

It's running from the same IP address, same (shared) connection with the same version of Firefox that fails on my MacBook/XP.

So how does the problem persist on one machine that has been completely rebuilt and not show up on another machine with identical versions of software? – NickN, on March 03, 2009 05:31

Bear with me, this takes a while.

I'm running a MacBook and parallels. I run Firefox/Mac, Safari/Mac, Firefox/PC, IE6/PC and Google Chrome. I get a very similar problem on EVERY browser.

I am able to log in, but I can only click one or two links before I get the same error.

But wait, there's more. I recently upgraded my Mac to OSX 10.5. I bought a new hard drive and did a complete re-install of everything. I also created a brand new XP install too. I still get the same error.

In other words, this cannot be a browser issue, hardware issue or OS issue.

<sigh></sigh>