Yeah, it happens to me as well, Winterhawk.
The reason for this is simply down to the spammers. They forced Jig's hand and you must now sign in BEFORE you are allowed access to even read messages on the forums.
When you log out, it defaults to the forum overview - which is now a restricted page. That's why this is happening.
We've been discussing various upgrades that the forums are desperately in need of in the staff room. Jig won't be able to implement the necessary upgrades until he gets his broadband access, though. (He's moving house at the moment)
Until then, we're just gonna have to put up with this annoying problem. The only way to avoid it is to not logout - unless you're on a shared computer, of course. (Don't let your wife use your account, Winterhawk!
)
We have "contingency plans" in case the spammers continue to spam the forums even after the upgrades though. And trust me, they are NOT nice plans for your average forum user. Big problems require drastic measures though.
I was expecting something like that from Matress.