Your problem may have been that in the cookie you have to set:
domain => ".whatever.com"

In the browser, if you just have the "whatever.com" without the "www." it won't work. The dot in 'domain => ".whatever.com" requires that a name is in front of "whatever.com".

For example: "http://www.whatever.com" <-- Will work
"http://whatever.com" <-- Will NOT work