Keep in mind that from a security standpoint is really is not a good idea to have indefinite sessions on a website nor is it a good idea to let scripts run for extended periods of time.

 

Here are some tips and advice:

 

Unfortunately the 20 minutes is limit is there for a very good reason.  It is actually the default session timeout set in IIS on the hosting server.  Many hosts, including myself opt to not alter this setting on the server as it gives a level of protection against resource (CPU and Memory) overrun as there is only a finite amount of available resources for all the websites on any given server (generally speaking with very few exceptions).  

 

You can tinker with some ASP scripts to extend this but I would advise against this if you are unsure of the consequences and possible ramifications.  If you are actively using the ProductCart admin throughout the day you really should not have much issue with the 20 minutes because it 'should' only kick you out after 20 minutes of inactivity.

 

You can certainly ask your host of they would be willing to extend the session timeout settings for you but chances are they will not do it.

 

Something you can do to improve stability of your active sessions is to place your site into a dedicated Application Pool.  The key to making this work effectively is to set (or have your host set) your resource limit to a minimum of 200MB (256MB would be better but many hosts might frown on this). Many hosts will have a default limit set to ~128MB but at that setting you may be hitting the ceiling from time to time.  For that reason it would be best to find out ahead of time what your host's policy is on Application Pool Resource Limits.

 

Granted if you are hosting in a VPS or Dedicated server you can alter the IIS settings directly but I would still caution against setting them to an enormous amount.  Best to move in small increments so you can gauge what the effect is going to be on overall memory and CPU resource usage.  It is still very possible for even a single site to chew up a processors available resources.  In this scenario I would, if it were me, set the script and session timeout to 30 minutes to start and move up if necessary until you find a place where you can operate comfortably.

 

Additionally even on a Dedicated or VPS platform I still feel it is a very good idea to set a dedicated application pool for your site however, on a dedicated platform you can set the application pool resource limit to something like 512MB (assuming you have enough memory on the machine to accomodate it).

 

 

Good luck

 

Just one note: The 20 minutes is not the total durration of the session. It's just the amount of time the server will wait for you to hit another ASP page before dropping from memory all session information for the user. That is, each time you hit another ASP page, the 20 minute clock starts all over again.

 

So, if you are idle a lot, then you are going to time out. You might consider something like RoboForm to make it super simple to log back in.

 

The most common reported problem is when entering a new product, the telephone rings and by the time they have dealt with the call the session has timed out. Logging back in doesnt help because they have lost all their input data if it wasn't saved.

 

Nigel