"Authentication Failed" while being logged in

[waclawek.jan]

JW

[Laurids_PETERSEN]

Hi @waclawek.jan,

Is this issue something you frequently encounter?

Do you have to login again when this message appears?

Best regards,
Laurids

[Tesla DeLorean]

I see this too occasionally.

The login and redirect also seems to fail 60% of the time (Chrome in Desktop Windows), perhaps 90% on the phone (Chrome on Android), so whatever mechanisms you have there seem particularly bad. Seems to have worsened in recent weeks, so not sure what changed.

Often it then appears that I am partially logged in or authenticated as the secondary attempts then flow through faster.

It's just a constant annoyance, it should work better, but I just tolerate it and try again.. I only have a hammer

[waclawek.jan]

Hi Laurids,

> Is this issue something you frequently encounter?

From time to time. Sometimes I'm clearly logged off through the idiotic few-hours timeout, as opening forum in different window indicates, but that was not this case, I tested that.

> Do you have to login again when this message appears?

In this case (i.e. I'm not logged out), it's enough to reload page.

---

> The login and redirect also seems to fail [..], perhaps 90% on the phone (Chrome on Android)

I confirm this, too; just am too tired of repeating complaints. That mechanism is inherently failed. At the first place, it's a dumb idea to redirect in the browser, authentication ought to be solved at your side entirely.

Also, the timeout ought to be months or never, but we've said it so many, many times throughout these years.

JW

@Laurids_PETERSEN 

[Laurids_PETERSEN]

Hi Tesla,
Thanks for providing this feedback.

Regarding the login issue on Chrome for Android, I believe I can replicate this error. I have described the flow from my perspective below: 

1. User clicks on the profile picture top right on community.st.com
2. User enters myST credentials and logs in
3. User gets a blank page and community.st.com does not load (blank page)
4. Going back to the previous page and then forwards again loads the community.

Does this flow align with what you are experiencing? 

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Laurids

[waclawek.jan]

I in step 3 usually get a "SSO redirect failed" page. Going back reloads the same page; going back twice loads the original community.st.com page from where I started, the icon indicating that I'm not logged in.

At that point, reloading still indicates I am not logged in, but clicking on the icon results in the page reloading with being logged in without having to enter login/password.

But this procedure is so annoying that I gave up weeks ago and simply don' t log in on mobile, so the details might've changed since then, who knows.

Point is, by getting rid of the entirely unneeded hourly login completely you also gain the benefit of not having complaints on the broken login system.

JW

[waclawek.jan]

Just tried, fallen into https://sso.st.com/idp/HQ2mE/resumeSAML20/idp/SSO.ping saying "Page expired". Then the rest of the routine (back twice, then reload does not help, then click on login automatically logs in through reloads including sso.xxx in urlbar briefly), exactly as I've described above.

JW

[Tesla DeLorean]

>>In step 3 usually get a "SSO redirect failed" page. Going back reloads the same page; going back twice loads the original community.st.com page from where I started, the icon indicating that I'm not logged in.

My experience is similar to Jan's. It fails and doesn't like going backward/forward. Go back to start, repeat.

>>Also, the timeout ought to be months or never, ..

I think the reason not to do this is that it's billed as a service, based on concurrent active users logged in. If this is the reason surely there are better algorithms to load-shed lurkers over more active participants.

Then again the off-site authentication probably billed per usage too.

Third party involvement probably to defer liability, but all these services seem to get hacked or compromised frequently, so mostly security theater at the cost of my data, time and patience.

[KathyCronin]

A few days back I also faced a login problem and all the login credentials were correct, is this normal or some kind of bug?

[waclawek.jan]

Following is a different way to achieve the same result, but maybe the underlying problem is the same (i.e. messy coding stemming from "modern" ajaxy approach).

I had a thread list open in one tab, and two different threads in two different tabs. In one of the latter tabs, I clicked Reply which took me to authentication, in the thread list I clicked on the user icon to took me to the same authentication. I (auto)filled in both the login/password and clicked to proceed in both, i.e. one was already somewhere in the redirection process while I clicked in the other. Both tabs displayed me that I'm logged in, i.e. user icon, red number of notifications next to the bell. In the tab with the thread, clicking on Reply caused the red "Authentification failed" as in the opening post of this thread.

JW