[SM-USERS] Preferences overwritten problem

[Adam F. <for...@lu...>]

In January we upgraded our squirrelmail installation to a new server 
running Squirrelmail 1.4.8,  SLES 9,  PHP 5.1.6 and apache 2.2.3  we 
compiled both apache and php on our own, and didn't use the RPM's 
supplied by SuSE.  The system is used by approximately 3000 users at 
Luther College.

The problem involves 2 users.   User 1 will suddenly realize that when 
they send mail their mail is being sent with the name and email address 
of User 2 on the from line of the message.  When I look at 
/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/squirrelmail-1.4.8/data/prefs/user1.pref I 
find that the original contents of the user 1's preference file is gone 
and replaced with contents that match those of user 2. 

When we question the user that reports the problem, they always know the 
second user, and can think of some scenario where the two of them might 
have been logged in from the same computer at the same time.  So I think 
the problem is that when 2 squirrel mail sessions start from 2 different 
users using the same browser on the same PC, the 2 sessions get mixed up.

What I don't understand is why we're seeing so many more cases like this 
now that we're running 1.4.8, than we have with any of the other 
versions of squirrelmail that we've run over the past 6 years or so that 
we've been using squirrelmail.  I've seen this problem periodically 
before the upgrade (maybe I'd hear about and fix 1 or 2 cases a year.)  
Since the upgrade, I'm fixing at least 1 case a week.

Anyone have any suggestions on a solution to this problem or a way to 
make it happen less frequently?  We of course tell each student that 
reports this problem that it happens when 2 users log into squirrelmail 
from the same compter at the same time, and tell them to make sure that 
the first user logs off before a second user logs on.