Selecting styles seems to have stopped working...

OvertheHill · December 14, 2005

Hi - I have several galleries set up with Viewer controlled style selection and it used to work. Tried it this evening and it's "stuck" on smugmug small - whatever I select (as non-logged in I should add) doesn't change the style. Anyone know why? Thanks

jfriend · December 14, 2005

Some things to try

OvertheHill wrote:

Hi - I have several galleries set up with Viewer controlled style selection and it used to work. Tried it this evening and it's "stuck" on smugmug small - whatever I select doesn't change the style. Anyone know why? Thanks

If the site you are talking about is http://overthehill.smugmug.com/, then changing styles seems to work for me in Firefox 1.5 and in IE 6 on your Portfolio Favourites gallery (that's the one I tried). That suggests that this may be a problem local to your browser/computer.

Some things to try:

Try in another browser or a different computer. This will be an indicator of whether the problem is with your site configuration/smugmug or the problem is a local one with that browser/that computer.
Try logging out and trying it.
Try clearing cookies and then trying it.
Try clearing the cache and then trying it.
Check your gallery customization page again to make sure that Hide Owner, Appearance, Style and Theme are all set as you expect.

OvertheHill · December 14, 2005

Hi - thanks for the reply. It's not that site (personal one) it's my pro one. Just tried the galleries in question in Firefox and it worked! I had deleted smugmug cookies in IE6 but that didn't work - I'll try logging out and back in - thanks for your help

Andy · December 14, 2005

OvertheHill wrote:

Hi - I have several galleries set up with Viewer controlled style selection and it used to work. Tried it this evening and it's "stuck" on smugmug small - whatever I select (as non-logged in I should add) doesn't change the style. Anyone know why? Thanks

If you give us the site name, it helps

OvertheHill · December 14, 2005

Andy wrote:

If you give us the site name, it helps

www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075

Sorry!

Mike Lane · December 14, 2005

OvertheHill wrote:

www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075

Sorry!

Go in and delete the cookies that are from www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk and you'll be good to go.

jfriend · December 14, 2005

I see the problem here too

Mike Lane wrote:

Go in and delete the cookies that are from www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk and you'll be good to go.

I see this problem on this gallery in both IE6 and Firefox 1.5 so I don't think this will be just fixed by clearing cookies. Judging by what I see and how smugmug works with style changes, it sure seems like it either has to be a cookie problem of some sort (though not just local to you since I see the problem too) or it has to be some setting in your gallery customization that is "locking" the style to smugmug small.

I suspect something like a gallery customization setting because my default smugmug gallery setting (which is in my cookies) is for smugmug and that's the normal size that comes up on my screen size. But, this gallery comes up in "smugmug small", not "smugmug". So, something is forcing the gallery style to smugmug small. Can you post a screen shot of your customize gallery screen or can you report the values of the four settings I asked you to check earlier?

Andy · December 14, 2005

it works fine from

http://personalpaparazzi.smugmug.com/gallery/779075

and the gallery settings are fine.

How have you got your domain set up? Is it CNAME Aliased to www.smugmug.com ?

JamesJWeg · December 14, 2005

I am having the same issue on both mac and pc and on my mac sometimes it clears on it's own without me doing anything, this just started happening about the time themes were added.

James.

OvertheHill · December 14, 2005

Andy wrote:

it works fine from

http://personalpaparazzi.smugmug.com/gallery/779075

and the gallery settings are fine.

How have you got your domain set up? Is it CNAME Aliased to www.smugmug.com ?

It is cname aliased as per instructions on smugmug

Hide owner NO
Appearance CUSTOM
Style VIEWER CONTROLLED
Theme DEFAULT

Deleted all cookies - same problem. Went in through smugmug.personal... and it worked okay

Mike Lane · December 14, 2005

I'll bet a buck it's the cookies

I had this same exact problem shortly after the last push.

JamesJWeg · December 14, 2005

FYI, I have found that it will sometimes work if you just opened the gallery but not if you have already clicked on a photo or other page.

James.

Mike Lane · December 14, 2005

OvertheHill wrote:

Deleted all cookies - same problem. Went in through smugmug.personal... and it worked okay

I could be wrong

jfriend · December 14, 2005

Suspect domain name configuration problem

Mike Lane wrote:

I could be wrong

Here's some new info. On IE6 with no cookie restrictions at all:

These two forms of the URL work fine:
http://personalpaparazzi.smugmug.com/gallery/779075
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/779075

This form of the URL does not work
http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075

That suggests to me that it must have something to do with the way the custom domain name is configured and that the domain configuration is causing cookies not to work. We know from previous examples that problems in the domain name configuration can mess with cookies. There was an earlier thread where password protection for a gallery didn't work because cookies were busted. When they fixed their domain configuration, it started working again.

JamesJWeg · December 15, 2005

jfriend wrote:

Here's some new info. On IE6 with no cookie restrictions at all:

These two forms of the URL work fine:
http://personalpaparazzi.smugmug.com/gallery/779075
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/779075

This form of the URL does not work
http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075

That suggests to me that it must have something to do with the way the custom domain name is configured and that the domain configuration is causing cookies not to work. We know from previous examples that problems in the domain name configuration can mess with cookies. There was an earlier thread where password protection for a gallery didn't work because cookies were busted. When they fixed their domain configuration, it started working again.

hmmm, I have also had problems with login to my cobranded name.

James.

Andy · December 15, 2005

JamesJWeg wrote:

hmmm, I have also had problems with login to my cobranded name.

James.

Hi James,

Care to elaborate? We can help if you let us know the specific problems. I checked your customname, that appears good. You've got Godaddy set up with CNAME Alias to www.smugmug.com yes? Are you having trouble when you are at pics.jamesjweg.com or when you are at jamesjweg.smugmug.com ?

All the best,

Mike Lane · December 15, 2005

JamesJWeg wrote:

hmmm, I have also had problems with login to my cobranded name.

James.

Please try deleting the cookies that are from http://pics.jamesjweg.com/ and see what happens.

JamesJWeg · December 15, 2005

Mike Lane wrote:

Please try deleting the cookies that are from http://pics.jamesjweg.com/ and see what happens.

hmmm, there wasn't any from my cobranded site, there are several from smugmug though.

James.

OvertheHill · December 15, 2005

jfriend wrote:

Here's some new info. On IE6 with no cookie restrictions at all:

These two forms of the URL work fine:
http://personalpaparazzi.smugmug.com/gallery/779075
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/779075

This form of the URL does not work
http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075

That suggests to me that it must have something to do with the way the custom domain name is configured and that the domain configuration is causing cookies not to work. We know from previous examples that problems in the domain name configuration can mess with cookies. There was an earlier thread where password protection for a gallery didn't work because cookies were busted. When they fixed their domain configuration, it started working again.

Well my CNAME points to www.smugmug.com.

Haven't changed that and it used to work. Strange

jfriend · December 15, 2005

Hmm. Why is the cookie get set only on "co.uk"?

OvertheHill wrote:

Well my CNAME points to www.smugmug.com.

Haven't changed that and it used to work. Strange

What do you have set in smugmug's control panel for your domain? Do you have the full www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk in the smugmug dialog?

I wonder if this could be a smugmug problem with domains that have a compound suffix like "co.uk" rather than just ".com"? Probably need some help from someone like JT on this one. When I configured Firefox to ask me about every cookie, I get this dialog below when I go to http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075. What's interesting about this dialog is that it's just setting the cookie on a domain of "co.uk" with a path of "/". That means that this cookie can easily get clobbered by lots of other sites. I think it should be setting the cookie on at least "personalpaparazzi.co.uk" and maybe even "www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk". Here's the Firefox cookie prompt dialog:

OvertheHill · December 15, 2005

jfriend wrote:

What do you have set in smugmug's control panel for your domain? Do you have the full www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk in the smugmug dialog?

I wonder if this could be a smugmug problem with domains that have a compound suffix like "co.uk" rather than just ".com"? Probably need some help from someone like JT on this one. When I configured Firefox to ask me about every cookie, I get this dialog below when I go to http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/gallery/779075. What's interesting about this dialog is that it's just setting the cookie on a domain of "co.uk" with a path of "/". That means that this cookie can easily get clobbered by lots of other sites. I think it should be setting the cookie on at least "personalpaparazzi.co.uk" and maybe even "www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk". Here's the Firefox cookie prompt dialog:

I have the full address in the smugmug domain

jfriend · December 15, 2005

Getting closer

OvertheHill wrote:

I have the full address in the smugmug domain

OK, then we're waiting for someone technical at smugmug to explain why cookies are being set on "co.uk", not on "personalpaparazzi.co.uk". This also explains why I couldn't find any cookies in my browser for personalpaparazzi.co.uk. Smugmug never set them. Instead it set "co.uk" cookies which can easily get trounced by millions of other web-sites and, in fact, some browsers may refuse to honor because they are too generic.

Andy · December 15, 2005

jfriend wrote:

OK, then we're waiting for someone technical at smugmug to explain why cookies are being set on "co.uk", not on "personalpaparazzi.co.uk". This also explains why I couldn't find any cookies in my browser for personalpaparazzi.co.uk. Smugmug never set them. Instead it set "co.uk" cookies which can easily get trounced by millions of other web-sites and, in fact, some browsers may refuse to honor because they are too generic.

Our engineers are aware of this - thanks. It also appears not to be an issue in Firefox for most folks that encounter this in IE. It is something we have to look into... no idea how hard the fix will be.

jfriend · December 15, 2005

Security advisory explains why setting doesn't stick on IE

Andy wrote:

Our engineers are aware of this - thanks. It also appears not to be an issue in Firefox for most folks that encounter this in IE. It is something we have to look into... no idea how hard the fix will be.

I can verify that I have smugmug-looking cookies in Firefox set for "co.uk" and in IE, I get no cookies set at all when I visit "http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/".

According to this security advisory, IE does not allow cookies where the second level domain is two characters or fewer in an attempt to defeat certain kinds of cookie injection security threats, so it will specifically disallow cookies on domains like "co.uk". Firefox does allow it. This does seem to explain the observed behaviors. With no cookie on IE, there's no persistence to the changed style setting. It also explains why the other forms of the URL all work because they don't end in co.uk.

It seems to me that the fix would be for smugmug to use the whole custom domain for the smugmug cookie, rather than just the last part of it. So, in this case, the cookie would be set on "www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk" which is probably what you want anyway because http://personalpaparazzi.co.uk is a separate web-site that isn't smugmug related.

OvertheHill · December 16, 2005

jfriend wrote:

I can verify that I have smugmug-looking cookies in Firefox set for "co.uk" and in IE, I get no cookies set at all when I visit "http://www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk/".

According to this security advisory, IE does not allow cookies where the second level domain is two characters or fewer in an attempt to defeat certain kinds of cookie injection security threats, so it will specifically disallow cookies on domains like "co.uk". Firefox does allow it. This does seem to explain the observed behaviors. With no cookie on IE, there's no persistence to the changed style setting. It also explains why the other forms of the URL all work because they don't end in co.uk.

It seems to me that the fix would be for smugmug to use the whole custom domain for the smugmug cookie, rather than just the last part of it. So, in this case, the cookie would be set on "www.personalpaparazzi.co.uk" which is probably what you want anyway because http://personalpaparazzi.co.uk is a separate web-site that isn't smugmug related.

Although that is me (personalpaparazzi.co.uk) I've no idea where that came from!!! Probably my domain host when I first registered at a guess.

Anyway, thanks for all your help so far

Selecting styles seems to have stopped working...

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