Your usage is backwards. You should first log into the Forum making sure that you see your user icon on the upper right. Then find the applicable Forum board and start a new thread or reply to a user. Note, I always "compose" in notepad. Then copy the data into my thread or reply. This way if there is a Forum issue, I have not lost my data.

I shouldn't have to log onto the forums manually every time I visit.  They should log me on automatically like every other forum does.  Since they can't do that, as soon as I click something that's going to require me to be logged on ("Reply", "New Post"), it should immediately check to see if I'm logged on and prompt me to log on right then.

The fact that it waits until after I've typed an entire post to then get around to check to see if I'm logged on is wrong.  No other forum does this and it should be fixed.

And the fact that when it finally gets around to making me log in, it doesn't work anyway, is just more evidence on how broken these forums are.  I'm following the flow that the forums are designed with and they don't work.

Cool. Thanks.