Password issue?

awfulsara · November 18, 2005

I've got 4-5 emails from people who were trying to access my galleries yesterday and the day before and keep getting asked for a password. Several others mentioned it during the course of the day yesterday.

I couldn't duplicate the problem on my end, even after logging out, closing my browser, and checking my site as would anyone else. Some of the people were overseas (Mexico & Switzerland, for example) but others were local, in case that helps.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is as a potential new client is understandably very turned off by it. Is there any chance of a redirect when something like this happens?? Something more friendly than "www.smugmug.com cannot be found" and the like? I also use flickr.com for more casual stuff (and the community aspect, of course) and there "friendly" messages help ease the mind tremendously, rather than looking like I just don't have my shite together.

I've gotten too many of those emails in the last couple months to be comfortable.

As an aside, I received an email today from someone ordering a print from Switzerland, said he had trouble ordering, that there was a problem with his address. He figured out that it was the special characters (accents and the like) that were giving smugmug fits, had to set his keyboard to not display accents before the address would be accepted. It would be helpful if you could pop up a message to that effect on the order page.

Thanks!! Have a good weekend!

Andy · November 18, 2005

awfulsara wrote:

I've got 4-5 emails from people who were trying to access my galleries yesterday and the day before and keep getting asked for a password. Several others mentioned it during the course of the day yesterday.

I couldn't duplicate the problem on my end, even after logging out, closing my browser, and checking my site as would anyone else. Some of the people were overseas (Mexico & Switzerland, for example) but others were local, in case that helps.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is as a potential new client is understandably very turned off by it. Is there any chance of a redirect when something like this happens?? Something more friendly than "www.smugmug.com cannot be found" and the like? I also use flickr.com for more casual stuff (and the community aspect, of course) and there "friendly" messages help ease the mind tremendously, rather than looking like I just don't have my shite together. I've gotten too many of those emails in the last couple months to be comfortable.

As an aside, I received an email today from someone ordering a print from Switzerland, said he had trouble ordering, that there was a problem with his address. He figured out that it was the special characters (accents and the like) that were giving smugmug fits, had to set his keyboard to not display accents before the address would be accepted. It would be helpful if you could pop up a message to that effect on the order page.

Thanks!! Have a good weekend!

Hi Sara,

I'm sorry that your visitors experienced this. There were no issues of any kind yesterday with the site - and nothing that would have caused passwords to be put on by us - as you know, you have the ability to password protect galleries, or your whole site.

Sara, were you visitors going to

http://www.saraheinrichsphotography.com/

or to

www.saraheinrichs.smugmug.com ?

We'd like to help.

Oh and thanks for the suggestion on the cart page, it's noted.

All the best,

JimM · November 18, 2005

Hi Sara,

I just tried viewing your site and none of your galleries show any photos???

Andy · November 18, 2005

JimM wrote:

Hi Sara,

I just tried viewing your site and none of your galleries show any photos???

I viewed as logged out user and see them just fine... screenshot here:

pat.kane · November 18, 2005

Major Problems!
I wonder if the recent changes by smugmug have thrown off your co-branding.

I get nothing but a footer when accessing your site in IE6. Comes across fine in FF.

You had better get in touch with smugmug tech support asap. Good luck.

pat.kane · November 18, 2005

It just occured to me that the password issue can be easily explained by the lack of page content except for the footer. The user accesses the page, sees no content other than a login button at the top (part of the smugmug footer, but it's at the top when there isn't any content!). They try to log in but they don't have a smugmug account. Seems reasonable to me.

Andy · November 18, 2005

Sara,

I went to your site - and found that you had Statcounter code in your Body Tag section - this is a big nono and will break the site. I'm sure this is why some folks were not seeing your photos.

I removed the offending statcounter code from your body tag - you can replace it, in your or your footer, and you'll be fine.

I hope this helps,

Andy

pat.kane · November 18, 2005

That must have fixed it. The same pages are now viewable in IE6.

JimM · November 18, 2005

I can see them now. Good work Andy!

Mike Lane · November 18, 2005

I blame stat counter for all this confusion! That trips so many people up, I swear.

Baldy · November 19, 2005

Passwords not working and an error message like "www.smugmug.com cannot be found" sound like DNS problems. That isn't an error message we would produce but one your browser would if it can't find a site. If they are going to your custom domain and it isn't configured correctly with a CNAME record or your ISP's DNS servers aren't working, those things are possible.

Thanks,
Chris

Password issue?

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