Nope --- I've set it where I never have to put my password in using firefox...
but think I found the issue...

I am on new desktop with windows 8.1 (yuch! but less yucky than 8.0!)
Given that some things require double clicks and some single on this new ops system,

I THINK it happens when I double click my url shortcut and the fte software thinks I've logged in twice in rapid succession...
when I see all forums and threads marked read I click the back arrow to go back one level in history and it shows unread forums - but all the thread are still marked as read... and the last visited is the previous minute...

so partly the problem is external to the keyboard since the software doesn't think visiting 1 second ago is an anomaly