Re-login for stats

rolette

Ever since the new account settings pages were rolled out, it periodically requires me to re-login when I'm trying to look at my stats. I'm already logged into SM so there shouldn't be any reason to have me re-login.

Is this a known issue? Any ETA for a fix? Very annoying...

Thanks,
Jay

HeroOfCanton

Hi Jay,

Thank you for letting us know. We've had sporadic reports of this but we're having a hard time tracking down the cause. Can you provide us with your OS and Browser version? Does it happen in all browsers? Do you have any plugins running that you can disable?

Standing by,
Ryan W.

rolette

HeroOfCanton wrote: »

We've had sporadic reports of this but we're having a hard time tracking down the cause. Can you provide us with your OS and Browser version? Does it happen in all browsers? Do you have any plugins running that you can disable?

Hi Ryan,

I see this happening on two different computers (home and work). One is running Windows 7 (64-bit), the other is running Vista (32-bit).

I'm using Chrome as my browser. Haven't tried testing it explicitly with other browsers because it is intermittent. Sometimes I have to re-login, sometimes I don't. Haven't been able to figure out any pattern to it yet.

The only extensions I'm running are:

* Adblock Plus (Beta) - not currently running on my home pc though
* EXIF Viewer 2.1.9
* Kaspersky Anti-Banner 12.0.0.374
* Kaspersky URL Advisor 12.0.0.477
* Kaspersky Virtual Keyboard 12.0.0.477

Jay

HeroOfCanton

Hi Jay,

Thank you for that information, I will pass it along. What version of Chrome? We've noticed happening more often on FF14, Chrome is not very common. If you notice it happening at least once a week, you might want to try another browser without those extensions for a week or turn them off for a week, esp. Kaspersky. We've had a lot of problems with Kaspersky and uploading, we usually have to disable it entirely to get uploads to work and it's possible it is doing something untoward.

With best regards,
Ryan W.

DesptachesGallery

Ryan - same issue here - Win OS7 Pro, FF 14.0.1. AVG Antivirus.

Note: we use a Pro account with custom domains from godaddy.com as part of the package we purchased. Conversations with one of the support heroes last week indicated that in our case it may have been godaddy putting cookies on browser from our domain name - outside of smugmug. If you look through the support log I'm sure you'll find the history for our site (in the banner below).

Hope this helps/Pete

rolette

HeroOfCanton wrote: »

Hi Jay,

Thank you for that information, I will pass it along. What version of Chrome? We've noticed happening more often on FF14, Chrome is not very common. If you notice it happening at least once a week, you might want to try another browser without those extensions for a week or turn them off for a week, esp. Kaspersky. We've had a lot of problems with Kaspersky and uploading, we usually have to disable it entirely to get uploads to work and it's possible it is doing something untoward.

With best regards,
Ryan W.

On my home PC, it's currently Chrome 21.0.1180.83 m. Will have to check on my work PC when I go in to the office in a bit.

I'm familiar (to say the least) with the issues uploading to SM with Kaspersky, but don't think that's related here. I'm not running Kaspersky at work and I see the issue there as well.

Jay

rolette

DesptachesGallery wrote: »

Ryan - same issue here - Win OS7 Pro, FF 14.0.1. AVG Antivirus.

Note: we use a Pro account with custom domains from godaddy.com as part of the package we purchased. Conversations with one of the support heroes last week indicated that in our case it may have been godaddy putting cookies on browser from our domain name - outside of smugmug. If you look through the support log I'm sure you'll find the history for our site (in the banner below).

Hope this helps/Pete

FWIW, I'm not using a custom domain, so that isn't it in my case.

DesptachesGallery

Rolette/Jay - you mean uploading or the issue with the dropped logins?

rolette

DesptachesGallery wrote: »

Rolette/Jay - you mean uploading or the issue with the dropped logins?

Not 100% sure I'm sure what you are asking... I'm know that Kaspersky isn't related to the re-login issue because I'm not running Kaspersky at work and I have the re-login issue there also.

KS is related to the upload issue however, but that's an entirely different thing and wasn't what I was trying to get fixed right now.

Jay

rolette

Work PC is running Chrome 21.0.1180.75 m. Extensions on the work pc are:

* Adblock Plus (Beta) 1.2
* EXIF Viewer 2.1.9

The issue happened this morning on my work computer. I grabbed a packet capture in case there was anything interesting in it, but with the TLS connection, visibility is pretty limited. There is a proxy server sitting in the middle, but given I don't have a proxy server on my home network and have the issue there, that seems an unlikely source for the problem.

Jay

rainforest1155

Jay,

Does it happen if you open your browser fresh? If so, that's normal. The account settings (including stats) are going through a secured https connection. The session for that is only kept for a certain time or until your close your browser.
Once you reopen the browser, for security purposes you will be asked to verify your login.

Some browsers come with the feature to save your open tabs and that might also save your session so you may not have to verify your login.

To clarify, there's a difference between the regular login and the verify login screen. On the login screen you can check the "keep me logged in" checkbox and then there will be a cookie set in your browser that keeps you logged in. That does have no effect on parts of the site where you have to verify your login.

If you still have an issue, I'd recommend that you contact us at the HelpDesk with more details (and a link back to this thread).

rolette

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Does it happen if you open your browser fresh? If so, that's normal. The account settings (including stats) are going through a secured https connection. The session for that is only kept for a certain time or until your close your browser.
Once you reopen the browser, for security purposes you will be asked to verify your login.

Yes, it definitely happens when I close/open the browser. It also happens occasionally in an existing browser session, so probably that is the "certain time" bit you mention.

Some browsers come with the feature to save your open tabs and that might also save your session so you may not have to verify your login.

I never have the browser save my password (I develop network security products for a living).

To clarify, there's a difference between the regular login and the verify login screen. On the login screen you can check the "keep me logged in" checkbox and then there will be a cookie set in your browser that keeps you logged in. That does have no effect on parts of the site where you have to verify your login.

I'm ok with SM requiring a login validation step to access my account settings (subscription, CC info, etc.). That's similar to how Amazon and other e-commerce sites handle it, so nothing new there.

My argument is that it doesn't make sense for stats to require login validation. There's just no reason for it other than it got lumped in under some of the same pages as the rest of the account info. It needs to be separated out. The normal SM login should be sufficient for stats access.

Thanks,
Jay

SamirD

I've seen this too on a variety of systems/browsers/OSs. It seems like a cross-domain cookie issue internally at SM as the login info is passed between the servers, but that's just a guess.

rainforest1155

rolette wrote: »

My argument is that it doesn't make sense for stats to require login validation. There's just no reason for it other than it got lumped in under some of the same pages as the rest of the account info. It needs to be separated out. The normal SM login should be sufficient for stats access.

Stats have always been a part of the account settings (or control panel as it used to be named). What changed that now all of the account settings are using a secured connection while before only certain parts were on it. With the change in place, I can't say if it's even possible to single out stats without a major change. It might be one of those can of worms...

Thanks for the feedback though, I've passed it on.

johnloguk

This is definitely a huge step backwards, time consuming doesn't even begin to describe it. It makes me log-in every single time I go to stats, even though I'm already logged in and have been for ages. It does it on every computer and every browser that I use, friends computers, the library, everything.

As a side issue, but related, you used to be able to check your comments for the last 24 hours. Now you can't, you can only check all of them. When that means loading 40,000+ comments it takes an age, on top of having to re-log-in every time. Come on Smug, you heralded these changes as more wonderful steps forward, but they are driving me nuts.

Andy

johnloguk wrote: »

This is definitely a huge step backwards, time consuming doesn't even begin to describe it. It makes me log-in every single time I go to stats, even though I'm already logged in and have been for ages. It does it on every computer and every browser that I use, friends computers, the library, everything.

As a side issue, but related, you used to be able to check your comments for the last 24 hours. Now you can't, you can only check all of them. When that means loading 40,000+ comments it takes an age, on top of having to re-log-in every time. Come on Smug, you heralded these changes as more wonderful steps forward, but they are driving me nuts.

It's a hardening of security (a good thing). If you use a password manager like I and many do, you never have to worry about it. Go give LastPass a try.

rolette

Andy wrote: »

It's a hardening of security (a good thing). If you use a password manager like I and many do, you never have to worry about it. Go give LastPass a try.

Hardening of security is only a good thing if it makes sense to secure it. There's just no reason to have a secondary login verification to look at stats.

SamirD

rolette wrote: »

Hardening of security is only a good thing if it makes sense to secure it. There's just no reason to have a secondary login verification to look at stats.

I agree with what you're saying since it's a real pain for me too, but since the stats are now integrated with the new control panel, I think hardened security isn't a bad thing. I'm sure that in time the double login will go away. It's happened at other times in SM's design cycle, so I know it's not intentional to be a pain.

rainforest1155

johnloguk wrote: »

As a side issue, but related, you used to be able to check your comments for the last 24 hours. Now you can't, you can only check all of them. When that means loading 40,000+ comments it takes an age, on top of having to re-log-in every time. Come on Smug, you heralded these changes as more wonderful steps forward, but they are driving me nuts.

At the top of the comments page, you can find the "recent" link. You should be able to bookmark that and therefore get to comments from the last 24h only.

rolette

SamirD wrote: »

I agree with what you're saying since it's a real pain for me too, but since the stats are now integrated with the new control panel, I think hardened security isn't a bad thing. I'm sure that in time the double login will go away. It's happened at other times in SM's design cycle, so I know it's not intentional to be a pain.

I'm sure it's not intentional, but SM has a history of not considering things a problem and taking years to finally listen and address the issue. I wish that was an exaggeration, but unfortunately it isn't.

SamirD

rolette wrote: »

I'm sure it's not intentional, but SM has a history of not considering things a problem and taking years to finally listen and address the issue. I wish that was an exaggeration, but unfortunately it isn't.

I can't disagree with you there. I've seen a lot of this myself over the years. And I thought it was bad until I saw how facebook runs their operation. Massive, crippling bugs that go unresolved for months without any reply from the company. I guess you get what you pay for, huh?

rolette

SamirD wrote: »

I can't disagree with you there. I've seen a lot of this myself over the years. And I thought it was bad until I saw how facebook runs their operation. Massive, crippling bugs that go unresolved for months without any reply from the company. I guess you get what you pay for, huh?

But in this case, we are paying AND get the unresolved issues for months.

SamirD

But we're not paying as much as the competition. And the issues here do get addressed, where on facebook they're part of an endless void of broken stuff that no one seems to care about. I agree that the bug resolution should be quicker at SM, but they're in development mode so I'm cutting them some slack for now.

rainforest1155

Good news, everyone!
Tools > view stats now shouldn't ask you to verify your login even if you had the browser closed and re-opened.

rolette

rainforest1155 wrote: »

Good news, everyone!
Tools > view stats now shouldn't ask you to verify your login even if you had the browser closed and re-opened.

SamirD

Yay!!!

Caoimhin

I found this thread because I am still having this very problem. Vista/IE 10 or and Win7/Chrome. I am still required to re-login to check stats after reopening the browser. Any help?

HeroOfCanton

Any time you login, if you don't have 'Remember Me' checked when you login, you will be asked to login again when you go into your Account Settings. If you'd like to not be asked to login again, check that box when you first login.

Allen

HeroOfCanton wrote: »

Any time you login, if you don't have 'Remember Me' checked when you login, you will be asked to login again when you go into your Account Settings. If you'd like to not be asked to login again, check that box when you first login.

Sorry but not the case, I always have 'Remember Me' checked. But things changed some time ago that
some times going to the control panel you had to re-log in. It was first seen on legacy long before this
NewSmug.

Caoimhin

Yes, the "Remember Me" box is indeed checked - but I am never "remembered". I am still required to log in again to check stats Very tiresome and unnecessary.

WinsomeWorks

Log-in problem has persisted off & on & has been back for weeks.
Heroes here should know this issue has been a problem off & on for the past year, and for the past several weeks there have been multiple reports of people getting logged out even though they have "Remember Me" checked. I've been getting logged out at least a time or two each day and some days I get logged out every time I've been on my site. So yeah, it's a mess and I sure wish they'd fix it for once & for all.