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Allan, please note that the problem is not directly related to Admin Tools. Elin explained it just fine on the Joomla! bug tracker. It is a bug in Joomla! which occurs only when your session expires. Admin Tools has an optional feature which allows you to periodically purge your sessions table, therefore nullifying older sessions.

Please go to Extensions, Plug-in Manager and search for "System - Admin Tools". In the Basic Options look for "Enable Session Cleaner". By default it is set to No. If you set it to Yes you have to use a sensible value in the "Run every X minutes" parameter below it. The default value (1 minute) is not a sensible value, it's an example. When you installed the software you were told that you have to read the fine manual. You can always change this setting to something sane, e.g. 60 minutes (one hour) for a busy site or 1440 minutes (one day) for most sites.

Also note that .htaccess.admintools, as per our documentation, is a backup copy of your .htaccess file before Admin Tools' .htaccess Maker modified it to your specifications. Deleting it has no effect whatsoever. That file wasn't used anyway. The file generated by Admin Tools, .htaccess, is used and apparently doesn't cause any problem on your site.

Allan, please, do read our documentation. When we tell you that you need to read our documentation before using our software we are not trying to be difficult, elitist or anything in the like. We are trying to protect you from inflicting harm upon yourself while using our software. If you read it you'll understand what I mean.

If the problem persists try uninstalling and reinstalling the component. The only problem is that you'll lose your settings.

Alan, I already explained to you how this works. Further to that:
- I really don't see how the generated .htaccess can even remotely be responsible for this issue. Actually, it doesn't and cannot cause this issue.
- Admin Tools is not directly messing with your site's back-end.
- I did explain what the problem is with the session and mind you that it affects all versions of Joomla! from 1.6 onwards. You could always disable the session cleaner if it caused so much of an issue to you.
- For what is worth I develop my software on Joomla! 3.1 (and before than on 3.0) for a year and never had this issue. I never had anyone report this issue either.

I am inclined to believe that maybe the problem isn't (only) what the Joomla! bug tracker item you linked to me describes but (mainly) a different issue I have identified and reported three years ago and, of course, got ignored. The session storage space for Joomla! is tiny: 20Kb in Joomla! 1.6, 64Kb in Joomla! 1.7, 2.5, 3.0 and 3.1. In Joomla! 1.5 it could grow up to 2Gb. When the storage space overflows your session is corrupt and then you observe strange behavior, including triggering the bug you linked to.

In this case Admin Tools is not the culprit. In fact, nothing is the culprit. It's a long standing Joomla! bug. Several plugins, modules and components try to store session data on your site up to the point that your session breaks. Imagine this as a glass of water that's almost overflowing. Of course the last drop of water to hit the glass will cause it to overflow. The last drop of water is not the culprit, the small glass holding the water is. Glass = session storage space, water = session data, drop of water = extensions (modules, components, plugins) saving session data.