I was able to solve the problem with: session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440 and setting it to 2000000. Now the sessions don't vanish and the site automatically log ins the users even after various hours.
Now there are still things on my 'wish list' :)
- Better forums, with post counts considering both comments and forum posts - Possibility for the aggregator module to parse atom feeds - Possibility to create and define different types of nodes so that each uses a specific layout-template - "Read more" link also in the body of the message when showing the teaser only - Archives viewable by date - Like listing all the notes in a specific time span. Like all post in November - Layers on the search function to narrow the search using time, categories etc.. - Correcting the bug with comments count. (it doesn't get update when approving comments that were in moderation)
I created an account on your server and can confirm that it succesfully kept me logged in after closing down my browser and restarting. (You may delete the account called 'cheeky' if you like)
and a few hours later, i can confirm that i'm logged out :S Sounds odd, this one. Remember that Drupal does not use any cookies of its own and just repies on the inbuilt PHP session handling cookie. It seems that drupal and the browser are both behaving correctly. Is something happening in your Apache/PHP to cause it to lose PHP sessions? Server re-configs / reloads / restarts? Cleaning of temp data?