When I leave the site I get signed out.

That means when I get an email notification of a new reply in a thread I click the link and get taken to the homepage to sign in.

When I've signed in it doesn't take me to the link I originally clicked, but back to the homepage - so I have to go back to the mail and click the link again.

Can we fix it so either login stays logged in, or it remembers where I was trying to go and takes me there when I've signed in...

We've noticed that too, and are hoping to have that fixed in the near future. Our site's integration with Live ID makes it a little more complicated, however - we're not completely in control of log in/out status, since the Live ID service is actually in charge of that. Still, it would definitely be nice to be able to go right to the post from the notification, so we're working on that one.

 I get that too,

I have to say that several times now, I recieve an email, and want to fire off a quick reply. But when it launches and I need to go back to it again.  I just don't bother replying.   I could just log in I know,  but for a quick reply its inconvenient.

Obviously not inconvenient enough for me to raise a post about it though!

 

 

Bill Fisher:

We've noticed that too, and are hoping to have that fixed in the near future. Our site's integration with Live ID makes it a little more complicated, however - we're not completely in control of log in/out status, since the Live ID service is actually in charge of that. Still, it would definitely be nice to be able to go right to the post from the notification, so we're working on that one.

 

 

An example of a website that handles this really well is forums.xbox.com   linking even to a new browser session will log you in. 

Agreed - it's an annoying little bug that we're going to fix. I am not sure what is going on, but I think I've nailed down when it happens: If you log into the site, and then close your browser completely without logging out, and then try to launch a post directly from a link in a notification, you'll get bounced to the homepage. You can click the notification link a second time, and you'll get to the correct post just fine, without having to sign in at the homepage.

This behavior only happens when you close your browser without signing out. If you do sign out of the site before closing your browser, you won't have the issue. Similarly, if you browse the site when NOT signed in, then close the browser, then click a link in a notification, you'll again reach the correct post right away.

 

I find that if I just go away and come back a couple of hours later I have to log in again. In these times of tabbed browsers I tend to keep 4 or 5 of my top sites open ,xboxlive is one of them and as davidc says it does react the same way. On this site though it just have to log in again every couple of hours.

I keep the website in one of my tabs in IE7. Sometimes when I go back to it, it takes me to the Home page, but I remain logged in. I wonder if this is because I am running Live Messenger and always logged in through that?