Can't login to forum via web page it's embedded in

[ajac63]

With great help from Israel, GregChapman and others, my forum now embeds into pages of my website without issue.  

However one slight problem is that I can only login via a direct link to the forum, but not via pages of my website.  If I click on 'Login' and then enter my email address and password, I'm simply returned to the page that the forum is embedded in, but I'm not actually logged in.

I've looked at the user permissions, but can't see anything that I should change that would prevent this.

[ajac63]

Any help appreciated here. If members can't login to the forum via the web pages/website it's embedded in, then embedding the forum is pointless.  Thankyou.

[Gary Lewis]

Greg - Thanks for alerting me to this.  And instead of replying to you so you could translate, I'll reply here.

Yes, I have seen this.  It is exactly what we saw when we had someone stand up a version of Nabble on our AWS server, and we never got it resolved and finally gave up.

The symptoms we saw were that you cannot log in via Chrome but can via Firefox.  And can on some devices using Safari but can't on other devices.  It takes your credentials with no errors but then you still aren't logged on.

One thing that will cause it is to have https turned on one place but not the other.  For instance, if you have the Nabble forum embedded in a Weebly website, as I do, and have https enabled on Weebly but not on Nabble that will do it.

But on our AWS server test we had https enabled both places but never could solve the problem.

I hope that helps.

[GregChapman]

Hi Gary,

I couldn't remember the full details of your problem. The only experience of anything similar I have had occurred a number of years ago.

In my case one would login to be returned to a screen that still showed the Login and Register links, making you think you weren't logged in, but after moving to another screen you discovered that you had, in fact, been logged in successfully. Quite a number of my users were understandable confused to not to see their user name after logging in.

However, I believe that bug was resolved some time ago, so I didn't feel I could help.

[Gary Lewis]

I think that is different from this problem.  If I remember correctly you don't see your name and aren't logged in.  But if you try Firefox you can get in.  It seems to be something about the way each browser treats https, but I sure don't understand what it is.

[ajac63]

Gary Lewis wrote

Greg - Thanks for alerting me to this.  And instead of replying to you so you could translate, I'll reply here.

Yes, I have seen this.  It is exactly what we saw when we had someone stand up a version of Nabble on our AWS server, and we never got it resolved and finally gave up.

The symptoms we saw were that you cannot log in via Chrome but can via Firefox.  And can on some devices using Safari but can't on other devices.  It takes your credentials with no errors but then you still aren't logged on.

One thing that will cause it is to have https turned on one place but not the other.  For instance, if you have the Nabble forum embedded in a Weebly website, as I do, and have https enabled on Weebly but not on Nabble that will do it.

But on our AWS server test we had https enabled both places but never could solve the problem.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for the helpful insights.  Well I use Opera which is a Chrome-based browser, so maybe I should try Edge (don't have Firefox) and see if that works, but even if it does, problem I see is that most web traffic is via Chrome-based browsers, so wouldn't really be a solution.

My website is https enabled and I've been told just days ago that https has been applied to the forum custom domain, which must be the case as otherwise it wouldn't embed.

[ajac63]

GregChapman wrote

Hi Gary,

I couldn't remember the full details of your problem. The only experience of anything similar I have had occurred a number of years ago.

In my case one would login to be returned to a screen that still showed the Login and Register links, making you think you weren't logged in, but after moving to another screen you discovered that you had, in fact, been logged in successfully. Quite a number of my users were understandable confused to not to see their user name after logging in.

However, I believe that bug was resolved some time ago, so I didn't feel I could help.

I tried replicating this, but found I still wasn't logged in whichever page I went to.  If this bug is resolved, why is this happening at all?

Best thing I can think of, is to direct registered members to the forum via a direct link on the page/s that the forum is embedded in.

[GregChapman]

As Gary says, the bug I experienced a few years ago did go away/was cured and isn't the one you and he are suffering.

I shouldn't have mentioned it, it's a red herring.

[ajac63]

GregChapman wrote

As Gary says, the bug I experienced a few years ago did go away/was cured and isn't the one you and he are suffering.

I shouldn't have mentioned it, it's a red herring.

But they seem to be similar bugs.  Whichever, other registered users of Nabble powered forums must be experiencing the same thing, because they won't all be using the same browser.  How do I resolve this issue?

[Gary Lewis]

I still get the can't-log-in bug every once in a while, but I believe it coincides with the security certificate expiring on the Nabble server.  Last year it happened twice almost exactly 3 months apart and a request to Israel to check it out fixed it.

But other than those two instances and the test on the AWS server I've not seen it.

[ajac63]

Gary Lewis wrote

I still get the can't-log-in bug every once in a while, but I believe it coincides with the security certificate expiring on the Nabble server.  Last year it happened twice almost exactly 3 months apart and a request to Israel to check it out fixed it.

But other than those two instances and the test on the AWS server I've not seen it.

Right, so this is definitely a security certificate issue with Nabble's server and not something to do with the people that host my website?  It's just that I'm getting on their case as well, just in case it's something their server is doing.

Anyway, should I send Israel a PM?  Will this get me anywhere?  This is becoming a game of patience.

[Gary Lewis]

I don't know what the problem is as we never solved it.  I just know that if the ssl certificate expires then you will have the problem, so I THINK it is to do with security.

[ajac63]

Gary Lewis wrote

I don't know what the problem is as we never solved it.  I just know that if the ssl certificate expires then you will have the problem, so I THINK it is to do with security.

Ok, thankyou.  So if I ask Israel to check if the ssl certificate for my custom domain has expired, that might help?  Only the last time I sent him a PM (about something else), I didn't get a reply.

[Israel <Nabble>]

The https is still enabled as requested before.

[ajac63]

Israel <Nabble> wrote

The https is still enabled as requested before.

Yes, and weeks ago already which solved the initial problem where the forum was not embedding into a web page.

However, this new problem is to do with not being able to login to my forum via the page it's embedded in, right?  So what do I have to do to resolve this issue?  If this is a ssl certificate expiry issue for the custom domain, can you please check for me.  Thanks.

[ajac63]

Israel <Nabble> wrote

The https is still enabled as requested before.

So has the SSL cert expired for the custom domain http://forum.talk-it.net.s1.nabble.com - if so, can a new cert be issued?  Thanks.  

Having said that, it looks as though it hasn't expired bc the padlock symbol is showing.  Maybe I should just give up on this whole thing and live with the fact that I've paid for a years hosting for nothing.

[ajac63]

Israel <Nabble> wrote

The https is still enabled as requested before.

Okay, I have been talking to the people that host my website and their last response was as follows:

It appears your code does not accept or store the cookies from the embedded website; the cookies are required to get into the member area of the forum and they have a different cookie for each session requested. Hence, you must ask your IT team or reach out to Nabble to resolve this issue.

So it could be a cookies issue, but what can I do about that?  What do I/other members have to do to be able to login to the forum via the website it's embedded in?  This issue has to be resolved soon. Thanks.

[ajac63]

Israel <Nabble> wrote

The https is still enabled as requested before.

I know it is, but this is not helping me!  This answer is not helping me, OK??  There is no point in being able to embed the forum if registered users can't login to it via the page/s it's embedded in.

[ajac63]

Gary Lewis wrote

I don't know what the problem is as we never solved it.  I just know that if the ssl certificate expires then you will have the problem, so I THINK it is to do with security.

In what way do you think it's to do with security?  I still cannot login to my forum via the page it's embedded in.

The people that host my website have said this:

It appears your code does not accept or store the cookies from the embedded website; the cookies are required to get into the member area of the forum and they have a different cookie for each session requested. Hence, you must ask your IT team or reach out to Nabble to resolve this issue.

[Gary Lewis]

The reason I think it was a security issue in my case is that it worked with certain browsers - ones that are known to handle security differently.  Like Firefox.

So have you tried other browsers?  Have you had some of your members try different browsers on various devices?  That's what I did and found that almost no one on Chrome could get in. Some Apple devices with Safari got in.  And everyone with Firefox got in.

As for getting the folks at Nabble to do anything, I doubt that is going to happen.  They've hosted my forum w/o fee for seven years, but a couple of years ago they stated that there's no more maintenance on Nabble.  In fact, they don't plan to continue running it long term, which is why I've spent $2000 to have someone else move my forum to their platform.

I don't know what the problem is, but there is some issue between the way your website host handles things and the way Nabble does.  I seriously doubt you will get Nabble to figure out what the problem is unless you are willing to pay them, and probably not then as they have stated there is no maintenance.  So you could try embedding your forum on another host.  For instance you could use Weebly, like I do, at least to test the theory.  I know my Nabble forum works embedded on Weebly.  So if you test on Weebly and it works then maybe the problem is with your host?