This is most likely a browser issue related to cookies (not the Awesomeness ones) or some other settings. Try with another browser with default settings and see if it happens again.
I didn't fully understand your chat issue but the way it works is that chat and forums are integrated so that when you login to forums, you automatically login to chat as well. This means that you should not have to do a separate login for chat. If chat link gives you a login page instead of chat lobby, you are not logged in to forums which is most likely a browser issue as I said earlier.