Lack of Admin Options: Widespread Reports

[GregChapman]

A number of people on Free Support are complaining of a lack of Admin Options on menus or raising queries that suggest a lack of access to Admin options.

I have just discovered that Admin options don't appear when running Internet Explorer, but work fine in Firefox.

Can you confirm this issue?

[Hugo <Nabble>]

It is working for me. Which version of IE do you use? Do you see a javascript error in the browser? Please post a link to a message that has this problem. Maybe the issue is just with a few messages. Please note that the dropdown now takes a while to load. People should see a "loading..." animation while the request is being handled by the server. So slow connections would probably force you to wait a few seconds before you can see the full menu. Please let me know what you think.

PS.: Thanks for bringing this to our attention on the premium support forum.

[GregChapman]

Hi Hugo,

I'm using IE 8.0.7600.16385. I see no JavaScript error nor any delay in the menu appearing

In the case I discovered yesterday it's not a message but the OPTIONS menu at:
http://gregtest.991552.n3.nabble.com/Gallery-f2543928.html

When logged on as an administrator I only see options for "Subscribe via email" and "Post by email".

Strangely, on this same test forum, when I logon as an authenticated user immediately after logging off as an admin user I see the full set of admin options at the top level:
http://gregtest.991552.n3.nabble.com/

These errors don't appear in Firefox 3.6.13

You might want to monitor:
http://nabble-support.1.n2.nabble.com/ADMINISTRATOR-FUNCTIONS-NOT-WORKING-tp6070400p6070400.html
where others are reporting a range of browsers affected.

[GregChapman]

I should have added there are similar issues reported in the following threads:

http://nabble-support.1.n2.nabble.com/EMBED-LIST-OF-SUB-FORUMs-tp6069588p6069588.html

http://nabble-support.1.n2.nabble.com/Help-td6076397.html

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Greg, thanks for the information, but I still can't reproduce the issue. Could you please open the link below with your IE and paste the results so that I can take a look?

http://gregtest.991552.n3.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=app_dropdown_later&node=2479465

You may wrap the contents with <raw></raw> tags to improve the readability. Thanks for the help!

[GregChapman]

Well!

After, trying both open and save on that, it insisted on installing the Windows Journal, (with dire warnings about a program wanting to write to it). Once installed, the Journal then complained that the file "might not be of the right type or it might be corrupted" and refused to open it.

However, I did have a file "NamlServlet.jtp" in my downloads folder that showed one line of text and a number of others that just contained a carriage or two tabs. The one line of text was:

                NabbleDropdown.show('postByEmail');


Hope this helps!

[GregChapman]

By comparison Firefox doesn't do any craziness and displays the following in the browser window:

                NabbleDropdown.show('postByEmail');
               
                NabbleDropdown.show('editNameDescription');
                NabbleDropdown.show('changeAppearance');
                NabbleDropdown.show('changeType');
                NabbleDropdown.show('changeDomainName');
                NabbleDropdown.show('moreOptions');

                NabbleDropdown.show('createChildForum');
                NabbleDropdown.show('managePinnedTopics');
                NabbleDropdown.show('manageSubApps');
                NabbleDropdown.show('parentOptions');

                NabbleDropdown.show('changePermissions');
                NabbleDropdown.show('manageGroups');
                NabbleDropdown.show('manageSubscribers');
                NabbleDropdown.show('manageBannedUsers');

               
                NabbleDropdown.show('embeddingOptions');
                NabbleDropdown.show('downloadArchives');
                NabbleDropdown.show('deleteApp');

               

[Hugo <Nabble>]

You shouldn't have to install that Windows Journal (IE is horrible because of these unnecessary things). Saving the results to a text file should be enough. The output you got in firefox is the correct one. I am wondering why you didn't get that output in IE. Were you logged in on the forum in IE when you got that output? You must be logged in otherwise the experiment will fail. Please make sure you are logged in when you click on that link. Thanks again!

[GregChapman]

Hugo <Nabble> wrote

You shouldn't have to install that Windows Journal (IE is horrible because of these unnecessary things).

 :-)

Saving the results to a text file should be enough.

At least the contents of the .jpt file were plain text.

The output you got in firefox is the correct one.

That makes sense to me.

 I am wondering why you didn't get that output in IE. Were you logged in on the forum in IE when you got that output?

Pass! I just opened IE, pasted in the URL and got bombarded with a host of dialogues. After the exercise I closed IE.

I have just reopened it, begun typing the URL to the forum in the address bar, picked it's home page from the drop down list and found that I was already logged in as my user-level ID.

I opened another tab, entered your URL, and got the same result as before.

Closed the test tab. Logged out on the remaining tab and logged in with my Admin ID, opened a second tab and entered the test URL, saved the resulting file and it was just like the Firefox version. i.e. everything was fine!  Checked on the home page tab and sure enough the full admin menu was showing under OPTIONS.

Since then I logged out and in with my user ID and the menu just showed the "subscribe" and "post" options. So again, all normal! Incidentally, in my first report when I said:

Strangely, on this same test forum, when I logon as an authenticated user immediately after logging off as an admin user I see the full set of admin options at the top level:
http://gregtest.991552.n3.nabble.com/

 What I found when I selected any of the admin options I went to a login screen - although I was already logged in at user level.

It begins to sound like some strange cookie issue to me, but I doubt that many others would be swapping between admin and authenticated users in the way that I am.

Apologies, I'm about to retire for the night now, so further reports will be delayed.

[GregChapman]

Just logged out of my forum before going to bed, returned to the home page, with "Login" and "Register" options to the top right and find that I have the full set of admin options on the OPTIONS menu! If I choose on of them I get taken to a login screen.

I don't recall that being normal!

Right! It's bed time!

I'll leave the window open and hibernate my system, so I can pick up where I've left off.

Goodnight! :-)

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Thanks for the details! I will keep investigating here.

[Hugo <Nabble>]

I had no success trying to reproduce the issue. Maybe you should try deleting your cookies in IE to see if the problem goes away (although a user said in the other thread that she tried that and didn't work, but this should be double checked). If this doesn't work, I will customize the templates of your testing forum so that it prints debug information. Thanks a lot for all the help!

[GregChapman]

Good Morning!

Had a thought as I woke. Is there any way that running both FireFox, logged on with an Admin ID and IE logged on under a user ID could interfere with each other and that's why I am getting the results I do from time to time?

Would listing all nabble.com cookies revealed by IE's Developer Tools offer any clues - before I delete them?

(I'm not too familiar with IE's Developer Tools, but I am surprised that for my GregTest forum they seem to list items from just about every web site I've ever visited when using IE. Normally I only run IE to test things when someone reports that one of my sites is running strangely or I get unexpected results from a site in Firefox.)

[Hugo <Nabble>]

One browser shouldn't interfere with the other. One thing you can do before deleting your cookies is to log out from your test forum and take a look at your cookies to see if you still have login information there (cookies with names "userId", "username" and "password"). Note that you should check only the domain of your test app (other domains may still contain those cookies, but they don't matter to your test app). Thanks again.

[GregChapman]

Hi Hugo,

I looked at last night's cookie page and that didn't have the three cookies for GregTest but did have for two other Nabble forums that I'd visited. I checked the GregTest Tab in IE and I was logged out.

I logged in using my Admin ID asked to display cookies again and now I have the three cookies for all three forums.

I logged out asked for cookies again and I'm back to the cookies for the two other forums.

While logged in I checked the OPTIONS menu. All entries present. After logging out. just the subscribe and post options.

So, unfortunately, from the bug hunting point of view, it all looks to be working perfectly normally in IE once more.

Any further suggestions?

[Hugo <Nabble>]

So you can't reproduce the issue anymore with IE, correct?

[GregChapman]

That's right!

You'll see from the free forum that now there are reports of topic locking/unlocking and post editing issues, as well as the problem I found with the main OPTIONS menu. Some are expressing theories that it relates to being embedded or not and it is affecting a range of browsers, not just IE where I encountered the issue.

Incidentally, the only time I see a loading graphic is when first opening a page in which a forum is embedded or reloading that page. I don't see it when using the Refresh option within the embedded forum or on an unembedded forum. (The GregTest forum is not embedded.)

[Hugo <Nabble>]

GregChapman wrote

That's right!

You'll see from the free forum that now there are reports of topic locking/unlocking and post editing issues, as well as the problem I found with the main OPTIONS menu. Some are expressing theories that it relates to being embedded or not and it is affecting a range of browsers, not just IE where I encountered the issue.

This seems to be a cookie issue. I will try to look at the code and see if I can understand what is going on.

GregChapman wrote

Incidentally, the only time I see a loading graphic is when first opening a page in which a forum is embedded or reloading that page. I don't see it when using the Refresh option within the embedded forum or on an unembedded forum. (The GregTest forum is not embedded.)

We have a loading animation in dropdowns, but they disappear very fast.

[Hugo <Nabble>]

I guess I found the problem. I am working on fix now.

[Hugo <Nabble>]

I just released the code fix and it should work now. I will let other users know in the free support forum.