Advanced customization re-login loses all my edits

jfriend

Advanced Customization page loses everything I entered. This has happened to me five times today.

I make some changes to my advanced customization page. I hit the Update button. It decided that it needs me to login again. I login again and then it takes me back to the advanced customization page. All my edits are gone and permanently lost. This is an absolutely horrible user experience. I don't know what it is that causes Smugmug to think I need to login again, but whatever it is it's happening a lot more frequently than it used to AND it loses all my edits every time it happens.

If you're going to make me login again and again (which is really obnoxious), then DON"T LOSE ALL MY EDITS. Even better would be to stop making me login over and over again. It appears to me that if I do anything on my site while I'm making the edits, then it will require me to login again.

In bug terminology, this is a "data loss" bug.

docwalker

John, browser details? I agree that it would really stink.

jfriend

docwalker wrote: »

John, browser details? I agree that it would really stink.

Firefox 3.6.13.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

If you're going to make me login again and again (which is really obnoxious), .. (snip).. Even better would be to stop making me login over and over again. It appears to me that if I do anything on my site while I'm making the edits, then it will require me to login again.

There's a reason for this. It's for security purposes, to protect you.

Doc will investigate and try to replicate the bug.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

There's a reason for this. It's for security purposes, to protect you.

Doc will investigate and try to replicate the bug.

Two issues: The amount of relogin I'm seeing is ridiculous. It's basically every time I try to go to the advanced customization. Second, when it does relogin, it loses all my data. The second issue is the most important part of this post as my edits are regularly getting thrown away.

Andy

John can list the exact steps to reproduce this issue please?

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

Two issues: The amount of relogin I'm seeing is ridiculous. It's basically every time I try to go to the advanced customization. Second, when it does relogin, it loses all my data. The second issue is the most important part of this post as my edits are regularly getting thrown away.

Of course we get it, John. No need to repeat That's why I said Doc will investigate and try to replicate. Need more help from you.

docwalker

John, Which way are you getting to the advanced customizations page? Are you using the facebook login or keep me logged in options when logging in?

jfriend

docwalker wrote: »

John, Which way are you getting to the advanced customizations page? Are you using the facebook login or keep me logged in options when logging in?

Keep me logged in. I NEVER use facebook login on Smugmug.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

Of course we get it, John. No need to repeat That's why I said Doc will investigate and try to replicate. Need more help from you.

Very simple to reproduce.

1) Using my site http://jfriend.smugmug.com on Firefox 3.6.13

2) Go to Advanced Customization. Login as prompted.

3) Type something in the bottom javascript section, do not hit Update yet

4) Open new browser window and go to http://jfriend.smugmug.com

5) Go back to the browser window with the advanced customization in it. Hit the Update button

6) It will prompt for a login. Provide credentials to login.

7) It will take you back to your advanced customization page and the previously typed text in the bottom javascript box has been thrown away. It's gone.

FYI, this exact scenario happens to me all the time when I need to fetch image URLs from a gallery for use in CSS or JS.

jfriend

docwalker wrote: »

John, Which way are you getting to the advanced customizations page? Are you using the facebook login or keep me logged in options when logging in?

While we're on this topic, this same Update button in advanced customization sometimes just reports:

"There was a problem updating your settings. Please try again."

At the top of the advanced customization page without asking for a re-login. When it does that, it also loses all your edits. I don't know exactly what causes the page to do this. One possible cause seems to be just letting it sit for awhile before pressing Update.

drode

I wish I could be more help. This used to happen to me constantly. Same exact, dreaded, error message. I got into the habit of copying the text out to an editor, making my updates and then copying it back in so I would have the text when it blew up and not lose all my work. Suddenly, one day I realized it didn't happen any more. No clue why or what might have changed.

Now I have some idea. Another window was open to view the changes. That sounds about right.

WinsomeWorks

I've run into this a number of times too, but couldn't find a rhyme or reason to it. Now that I think about it, I did sometimes have a second page open to view changes, but I can't say for certain that the two things happened simultaneously. (2nd page open, and lack of saved changes). I almost always copy changes to some other spot (usually an email to myself), and have been doing that for a long time because I'm so paranoid about having the problem again.

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

I've run into this a number of times too, but couldn't find a rhyme or reason to it. Now that I think about it, I did sometimes have a second page open to view changes, but I can't say for certain that the two things happened simultaneously. (2nd page open, and lack of saved changes). I almost always copy changes to some other spot (usually an email to myself), and have been doing that for a long time because I'm so paranoid about having the problem again.

John Friend may have a fix, it seems to happen when you use his slideshow code, but I'm not sure.

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

John Friend may have a fix, it seems to happen when you use his slideshow code, but I'm not sure.

The purpose of this bug report is that is that the advanced customization loses data when it decided to ask for a relogin. That bug has NOTHING to do with my slideshow and can be reproduced without my slideshow. It might be easier to reproduce with my slideshow because the &^%$#@ advanced customization box might require relogin more often, but the core bug this report is about has only to do with data getting lost and nothing to do with my slideshow. Please don't bury this serious data loss bug which has actually been in the product for a long time (it happened to me years ago - I just didn't go to the trouble of reproducing it and reporting it).

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

John Friend may have a fix, it seems to happen when you use his slideshow code, but I'm not sure.

Good grief. Did anyone even read the precise info John provided in post #10 ? He provided what was asked, & it said nothing about slideshow code. Anyway, don't know if you're talking about the old stretchy code or the new HTML5. I haven't even tried putting the new one in yet, so it certainly isn't that. It seems someone should try taking note of this other possible common thread-- opening another window to see the changes. At any rate, all this additional log-in stuff is annoying a lot of people & causing problems with this and other areas of the site. "Providing security" isn't really an answer to it. If someone were able to hack into my site once, they're going to be able to continue to enter it multiple times no matter whether they have to log-in again or not. I don't hear anyone around here asking for that kind of security where it gets to be ridiculous because you're constantly logging in. If you've already logged in to even access your customization box, why in the world should you have to log-in again to hit "Update"??!! Simple answer. You shouldn't have to, and something is amiss.

Andy

Hey guys, there's absolutely no reason to get angry. C'mon.

I can't reproduce this. But I did have it happen this weekend when I was playing around with John's new slideshow on a test site. And then I saw in John's release notes something about this issue.

Please, can we be considerate here? I am on your side!

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

Please don't bury this

C'mon, you know better than this. We don't bury anything. If we can reproduce it we will fix it. I'll ask Doc to try again, John with your steps.

docwalker

John, I was finally able to replicate your bug. I have sent it to the programmers. For now I recommend not using the same browser to view and edit at the same time. That might help some.

jfriend

docwalker wrote: »

John, I was finally able to replicate your bug. I have sent it to the programmers. For now I recommend not using the same browser to view and edit at the same time. That might help some.

Good news. Thanks.

jecottrell

Duplicated from a post in the Customization forum:

I'm having the same issue. It has nothing to do with 'where' you're logged in. I think it has to do with having several tabs open and navigating back and forth between them.

Happens in both FF and Safari.

At least three tabs open:

Dgrin, Smugmug Owner View, Smugmug Visitor View.

If you leave the owner view tab and look at the visitor view tab, then goto the Dgrin tab, then goto the Owner view tab control and make changes and submit, you get this prompt:



Some how I get to the "Visitor View" of the control panel?

It's really making the customization even more painful than it already is.


AND, you lose all the work you've put in the customization form.



It has nothing to do with his slideshow and not related to different browsers. I have the problem moving between tabs in the same browser.


Any ideas? Makes customization REALLY painful.



.

jecottrell

Requirement to Re-Login Each Time After Viewing Visitor View

• Give us your site name
• Describe the problem
• List the steps to replicate and recreate the problem
• Provide links to your galleries, photos, etc so we can look
• Let us know your system, and browser and version (e.g., Firefox 3, on Windows)

jecottrell.smugmug.com

When customizing with two windows or two tabs open, one to view results and one to the "Advanced Site-wide Customization" panel, any time you go to visitor view, upon returning to make advanced changes and clicking on "update" you are forced to login in again and re-enter any changes.

Experienced on XP, OSX, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Thanks,

John

docwalker

Because of the way cookies work, I would recommend that you not use one tab logged in and one tab logged out at the same time in the same browser. That includes using the visitor view in the second tab. The login status cookies will likely conflict.

When testing I use a totally separate browser and switch between them. Use one logged in and one logged out. That allows me to fully reset the cookies and cache on the logged out browser without it effecting my logged in status on the other browser. I will typically have IE, FF and Chrome running in a VMware PC install, and FF, Chrome, Safari running on the OSx install.

I am pretty sure we have a bug filed about the issue with using different tabs. I will check. I am not sure if we can work around the issue at this time due to the limitation of how the browsers use cookies.

jecottrell

Sounds good. Will do.

John