An article says I'm not Premium when I am

If a members-only article shows you the upgrade box even though your membership is fine, your browser's sign-in session has gone stale. Here's the two-minute fix.

You're a Premium or Professional member, you're signed in, and you open one of our analysis posts or a members-only article. Instead of the full piece you get the upgrade box, as if you were on a Free account.

Your membership is fine. Nothing has gone wrong with your payment. What's gone stale is the sign-in session in that browser.

The fix

Do these in this order. The middle step is the one that actually does the work:

1. Log out of RatingTheRaces.
2. Open the ratings and log back in there. Signing back in on the ratings is what renews the session the article checks.
3. Go back to the article and reload it.

That's it. The full piece should now open normally.

Why it happens

Our articles live on the website, which is built to be fast and is separate from the ratings app. The members-only part of an article is deliberately not in the page when it loads: the page first asks the ratings app who is signed in, and only then fetches the members-only section for you. It's the reason that content can't simply be read out of the page by anyone who isn't a member.

So the article is only ever as up to date as your sign-in session. If that session has lapsed, the app answers "nobody is signed in", and the page falls back to the upgrade box. It has no way of knowing you're actually a paid-up member, because at that moment it can't tell who you are at all.

Two things make it look stranger than it is:

• Sessions don't last forever. They run for about a week, so if it's been a while since you last signed in, the article can be the first place you notice.
• Refreshing on its own often doesn't fix it. Once the page has been told you're not signed in, it doesn't keep asking. That's deliberate, so a busy page doesn't hammer the app, but it does mean a plain reload usually shows the same upgrade box. Renewing the sign-in is what changes the answer.

Other times you'll see it

• You opened the article link on a different browser or device from the one you're signed in on.
• You opened it in a private or incognito window, which doesn't carry your sign-in.
• You were signed out in another tab while this one stayed open.

Worth checking

Have a look at your subscription under your account. If it shows Premium or Professional, the membership is active and this is purely a sign-in refresh, not a billing problem. If something looks wrong there instead, see I upgraded but can't see the full ratings.