The session is (normally) stored in a browser cookie, which is sent to the server with each request, and then picked up by the server.
If the session is truly null on the server side, the user can't be logged in (since the server decides that).
Sometimes the browser will cache the page and load that when it restarts, but that would be cleared when you refreshed the page manually.
Can you provide a bit more information about the troubleshooting you've done? It might shed a bit more light on what's happening.
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