Little Login Help?

November 28, 2007 1:27 PM

We're working on a new login system for MetaFilter and we're looking for a few brave souls to try it out.

Sadly there's no big payoff here. If everything works as it should you won't see anything different on the site. But behind the scenes you'll get some different cookies when you log in at the beta site. If you're game, simply sign out and then log in at the beta login. Use the site as you normally would and report back here if anything strange happens. If you ever run into trouble, just sign out and use the standard login to get back in. Thanks for testing.

posted by pb to feature requests at 1:27 PM (130 comments total)

I'd hit it.
posted by grouse at 1:31 PM on November 28, 2007

Hmm so far so good! There are a lot of crap posts on MetaTalk though; see what you can do there.
posted by Mister_A at 1:31 PM on November 28, 2007

so far so good.
posted by mosessis at 1:32 PM on November 28, 2007

Well, hell, if there's cookies ..
posted by maudlin at 1:32 PM on November 28, 2007

... and they were delicious. No problems here.
posted by maudlin at 1:33 PM on November 28, 2007

When I logged out, I was blinded by the giant flashy Verizon ad on the front page. Everything is a pale haze, but I was able to log in through the beta page and can kind of make out some text on the screen. So far so good.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:35 PM on November 28, 2007

worked
posted by parmanparman at 1:35 PM on November 28, 2007

Not seeing anything wrong so far, other than that I don't have a filepile account. Mods help plzkthx.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:36 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked fine.
posted by justgary at 1:36 PM on November 28, 2007

Gone and back again. Seems fine to me. This cookie tastes like shit, though.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 1:36 PM on November 28, 2007

Works fine for me.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:36 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked for me.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:36 PM on November 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Worked for me at my wonky work connection (Citrix tunnelling or something, and then on a crappy handicapped version of IE6). I'll try again when I get home in a few hours.
posted by carsonb at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2007

Seems fine, to me.
posted by Elmore at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2007

I got infinite redirects to www.metafilter.com on FF and Galeon. Had to delete cookies and login normally.
posted by Skorgu at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2007

Fine for me.
posted by olinerd at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2007

Here I am! Through the portal safe and sound and in one pie- ...OMG there is someone else's ARM protruding from my chest. ...You monsters, it's quonsar's!!! *runs about shrieking being smacked by zombie quonsar arm*
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:38 PM on November 28, 2007

Weirdness: I tried to login and got "The page isnt' redirecting properly". Then when I tried to go to the regular login (http://www.metafilter.com/login/) and got the same. Then I just tried to go to plain ol metafilter (by typing in "metafilter.com">, made sure it wasn't using the "previously been there feature and subbing in the url", hit return and i'm taken to www.metafilter.com/login/ and get the same error.

All this under Flock 1.01 and Firefox 2.09.

Tried Opera and got this:

Redirection Status
The URL was redirected to http://www.metafilter.com/login/. Please click the link to go there.

You can enable the automatic redirection in the settings.

I tried going to the link and got the same error, so essentially I'm caught in a loop. I try to going to plain ol metafilter (by typing in metafilter.com) and get the same screen.



I'm in Safari now and logged in normally and wondering why pb hates me.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:40 PM on November 28, 2007

KABOOM!
posted by dead_ at 1:41 PM on November 28, 2007

I had the same problem as Brandon Blatcher and Skorgu. Had to clear my cookies and now I'm logged in old-skool.
posted by PhatLobley at 1:41 PM on November 28, 2007

O yea, I'm on Intel Mac OSX 10.4.11//FF 2.0.0.10
posted by Mister_A at 1:42 PM on November 28, 2007

How is it that I can play the violin now?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 1:42 PM on November 28, 2007

Oh, I'm on Intel OSX 10.5.1 & FF 2.0.0.10 and I didn't see anything like Brandon, Skorgu, or PhatLobley did.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 1:44 PM on November 28, 2007

I just tried it and I got:


The web site you are accessing has experienced an unexpected error.
Please contact the website administrator.

The following information is meant for the website developer for debugging purposes.
Error Occurred While Processing Request
Variable APP_SALT is undefined.

Resources:

* Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debug Output Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
* Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
* Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.10) Gecko/20071115 Firefox/2.0.0.10
Remote Address 65.42.231.233
Referrer http://www.metafilter.com/login/beta.mefi
Date/Time 28-Nov-07 01:44 PM
posted by headspace at 1:45 PM on November 28, 2007

Yeah, I got the same thing.
posted by koeselitz at 1:46 PM on November 28, 2007

This is clearly just a trick to get some of the riff-raff to log out, only to be locked out forever.

FORGET IT, PB, I AIN'T FALLIN' FOR IT.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:47 PM on November 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Me three. Tried it twice and got the Variable APP_SALT error both times.
posted by googly at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2007

Oh cool, now when I go to metafilter.com, menu bar that shows I'm logged in (New Post, My Profile etc, along with the welcome back | sign out part), but I keep getting redirected to www.metafitler.com/login. CLicking on any link takes me to the same page. On a PC runing XP.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2007

aha, thanks for the reports. infinite redirect AND the last application error should be fixed.
posted by pb at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2007

If I log out, do you promise to let me log back in? Honest? No fingers crossed behind your back?
posted by Cranberry at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2007

Actually, so did I (on Windows/Firefox).

I was OK if I used your link in the post to logout, then in via beta. But if I used the usual link in the upper right to logout, then tried beta to login, I got that exact error.
posted by maudlin at 1:48 PM on November 28, 2007

Right, that last fix worked. As you were.
posted by maudlin at 1:50 PM on November 28, 2007

It appears to work just fine.

For me.

For now.
posted by dersins at 1:50 PM on November 28, 2007

I have Brandon Blatcher's 4:48 error to the tee.
posted by Skorgu at 1:52 PM on November 28, 2007

I know Kung Fu.
posted by interrobang at 1:52 PM on November 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

It worked, but when I came back to post my success my comment mysteriously vanished.
posted by contessa at 1:53 PM on November 28, 2007

But deleting cookies and using the normal login works fine, EXCEPT FOR EATING MY SOUL.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:54 PM on November 28, 2007

pb pb pb!! Since doing this, all the posts in my Reccent Activity show myself as poster. ...Thanks!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:54 PM on November 28, 2007

It's working now.
posted by klangklangston at 1:55 PM on November 28, 2007

"The thing's hollow ... it goes on forever... and ...oh my God! — it's full of stars!"
posted by horsemuth at 1:55 PM on November 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

no problems in lynx =)
posted by nomisxid at 1:56 PM on November 28, 2007

BB and Skorgu, you might try deleting all your Metafilter cookies and logging in again. Things were probably a bit wacky while the infinite redirects were happening--that should be fixed now.
posted by pb at 1:58 PM on November 28, 2007

"pb pb pb!! Since doing this, all the posts in my Reccent Activity show myself as poster. ...Thanks!"

Me too (but they show me as poster, not AV). I logged out then used the old login and the threads in recent activity are attributed correctly.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 2:00 PM on November 28, 2007

Here's a bug: in Recent Activity, the posts in the left-hand column all say "posted by mattbucher" rather than the actual poster. Anyone else get your username showing up there?
posted by mattbucher at 2:00 PM on November 28, 2007

Ugh. Sorry for not reading all the comments!
posted by mattbucher at 2:01 PM on November 28, 2007

Thanks, RA fixed!
posted by pb at 2:01 PM on November 28, 2007

Oh, now it doesn't do it. Geez, at least let us have a minute to bask in the found bugs glow, wouldja?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 2:01 PM on November 28, 2007

pb sorry, no dice. Deleting cookies and re-logging in under galeon at least still sends every page to /login/ even though my forlorn empty mail icon appears.
posted by Skorgu at 2:04 PM on November 28, 2007

Hey, I don't have and MeFiMail!


I never have any MeFiMail [sniff!]
posted by Mister_A at 2:05 PM on November 28, 2007

Me too. When I log in, my header changes to reflect that, but clicking any link goes to metafilter.com/login, including the signout button. Got to delete cookies for it to work again, FF and IE7.
posted by tracert at 2:05 PM on November 28, 2007

Skorgu, I'm guessing the cookies aren't being written to your drive. Any chance you could check and see if the MeFi cookies that are set on login actually have stuff in them?
posted by pb at 2:05 PM on November 28, 2007

you might try deleting all your Metafilter cookies and logging in again.

Tried that, got same errors. Specifically, I try logged out, deleted cookies and tried to login via the nifty new form, but got same error. If this is about your what happened to your cat, I said I'm sorry.


Note to others: The Remove All Cookies button is a little too close to the Remove Cookie button. Chose wisely.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:05 PM on November 28, 2007

It seems not to refresh my new comments indicator.

Showing 49 comments (49 new) on this thread, for example, even though I've looked at this thread several times since I logged back in.

I am not clever enough with the software to know if a cookie would do this, so I tell you.

Everything else is fine.
posted by winna at 2:07 PM on November 28, 2007

Fine for me too, but I'm seconding Dipsomaniac's request. To me, Metafilter bugs are like unicorns made of chocolate that sound like Alison Krauss.
posted by mitzyjalapeno at 2:07 PM on November 28, 2007

Everything's great except for one problem. I'm logged in as the old Pastabagel, not the shiny new PastaBetaBagel 2.0. Please advise as to cream cheeses.
posted by Pastabagel at 2:07 PM on November 28, 2007

I haven't noticed any difference at all.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 2:09 PM on November 28, 2007

So, does this mean I'm in the cabal?

Also, I have Mister_A's problem.
posted by never used baby shoes at 2:10 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked fine.
posted by rtha at 2:11 PM on November 28, 2007

pb nope cookies are getting written fine. FF 2.0.0.10 on Gutsy btw.

My BASE_REF cookie is getting set to "%5Fself", no idea what normal should be or if that's relevant.
posted by Skorgu at 2:13 PM on November 28, 2007

I was wrong. It doesn't seem to be indicating new comments. I'm running Vista and Safari. Everything else is still good, though.
posted by mitzyjalapeno at 2:15 PM on November 28, 2007

I agree with winna -- not refreshing the "new comments."
posted by olinerd at 2:17 PM on November 28, 2007

Firefox 2.0.0.10 on WinXP sp2, FWIW.
posted by olinerd at 2:18 PM on November 28, 2007

All good from here. Camino 1.5.3
posted by gingerbeer at 2:33 PM on November 28, 2007

Same version of Firefox and XP as olinerd here.
posted by winna at 2:33 PM on November 28, 2007

The "new comments" thing isn't a bug related to the new login, it's just not very accurate. Improving how new comments works is on our "someday" list.
posted by pb at 2:35 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked. Firefox 2.0.0.10
posted by everichon at 2:41 PM on November 28, 2007

I miss the old Metafilter login procedure.
posted by cortex at 2:48 PM on November 28, 2007

worked for me.
posted by puritycontrol at 2:49 PM on November 28, 2007

Will this help us change our passwords?
posted by blue_beetle at 3:04 PM on November 28, 2007

Because, if so, I'd like my new password to be "Monkey".
posted by blue_beetle at 3:05 PM on November 28, 2007

Seems to work with IE7+Vista.

Still no https login... ?
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:14 PM on November 28, 2007

When logged out with your link, it retained the plain theme even under refresh when normal logout usually gives me back the blue-green-grey.

Also, beta login is case sensitive? Previously, rumple and Rumple were both acceptable, now only Rumple is.
posted by Rumple at 3:15 PM on November 28, 2007

˙ǝƃuɐɹʇs ƃuıɥʇʎuɐ ǝǝs ı ɟı noʎ oʇ ʞɔɐq ʇǝƃ oʇ ǝsıɯoɹd ı ʇnq 'ǝɹǝɥ ƃuoɹʍ ƃuıɥʇou
posted by flatluigi at 3:18 PM on November 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

Beta login works fine for me. Just out of curiosity, what's the new login for?
posted by WCityMike at 3:18 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked for me, MiguelCardoso!

Ay! Carumba!
posted by ColdChef at 3:29 PM on November 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Rumple, I was just working on a case-sensitivity issue. You might try logging in again with "rumple". It should work.

WCityMike, the new login is for improved security and some new features--including changing your password. Oh, and SSL is in the plans.
posted by pb at 3:31 PM on November 28, 2007

Works now, though it says "logged in as Rumple" even though I am logged in as "rumple", but arguably that's more correct anyway. Thanks pb.
posted by Rumple at 3:36 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked in my IE7 too.
posted by saucysault at 3:41 PM on November 28, 2007

pb that case sensitivity seems to have fixed it, I can login fine with the beta now. I guess I'll have to stick to being capitalized from here on out.
posted by Skorgu at 3:44 PM on November 28, 2007

WFM in the very latest Firefox 3 nightly build for Windows XP.

Build ID: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b2pre) Gecko/2007112805 Minefield/3.0b2pre ID:2007112805
posted by Plutor at 4:23 PM on November 28, 2007

Don't know if this is your problem at all, but when I click the "beta login" link from the RSS feed (in Google Reader) and submit, it redirects me back to Google Reader. When I do it from the thread it works fine. Firefox 2.0.up-to-date, Win XP
posted by Rock Steady at 4:31 PM on November 28, 2007

Rock Steady, normally that's a feature that takes you to the last page you were on on Metafilter after logging in. Normally you won't be clicking a MeFi login link on another site, so that's a one-time thing.
posted by pb at 4:43 PM on November 28, 2007

It's all a scam! I have it on good authority that this "Pee Bee" character is out to get our passwords!

From there it's only a matter of time before he is using us all as sock-puppets!

*flees*
posted by quin at 4:46 PM on November 28, 2007

Oh yeah; it worked.
posted by quin at 4:46 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked for me. Random, request: if you log out, get redirected to the place you logged out from.
Also, some day, if you're logged out, it might be nice to have log on fields on the page themselves instead of a separate page.
posted by jmd82 at 5:16 PM on November 28, 2007

I'll try it.
posted by jonson at 5:20 PM on November 28, 2007

JESUS CHRIST MY PENIS THE BURNING OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE IT STOP!! WAIT WHAT'S HAPPENING IS THAT FIRE??? HOLY SHIT I'M URINATING FIRE!! OH MY GOD WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? NO PLEASE NO MORE I WISH ONLY TO DIE AND END THIS TORMENT!!
posted by jonson at 5:22 PM on November 28, 2007

Um. I think there's like a bug. Or something. Did anyone else pee liquid fire? Like a aspargus scented napalmy concoction? No? Just me?
posted by jonson at 5:22 PM on November 28, 2007

Well, not asparagus scented; that's probably something else.

But the beta login worked fine for me and, frankly, I always wanted to be able to do a kind of a flame-thrower thing. I'll tell you, it cleaned and sterilized the WHOLE bathroom.
posted by wendell at 5:27 PM on November 28, 2007

I didn't get any wiener fire, but this strange smelly brown stuff came out of this odd opening on the backside of my body, down near my lower back. Other than that, the login worked fine.
posted by jefbla at 5:37 PM on November 28, 2007

It worked fine for me. Vista and FF 2.0.0.10.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:37 PM on November 28, 2007

Worked fine for me. XP, FF 2.0.0.10.
posted by cerebus19 at 5:41 PM on November 28, 2007

Oh yes, XP, 2.EIEIO.10 and American Standard bathroom fixtures.
posted by wendell at 5:46 PM on November 28, 2007

safari/leopard - worked fine.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 5:47 PM on November 28, 2007

All done metabeta in.
posted by phoque at 5:54 PM on November 28, 2007

Works fine on the mac with camino.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:54 PM on November 28, 2007

I have case sensitivity on my username in the upper-right corner, yay!
posted by By The Grace of God at 5:58 PM on November 28, 2007

Works for me. XP SP2, FF 2.0.0.9, draconian firewall.
posted by wtdoor at 6:36 PM on November 28, 2007

All fine with Camino 1.6a1pre and OS X 10.4.11.
posted by keijo at 7:08 PM on November 28, 2007

I'm afraid to try it, as I'm not sure of my password, having not typed in in 3 or 4 years
posted by pjern at 7:20 PM on November 28, 2007

firefox remembered my password in the new form, if that helps.
posted by puke & cry at 7:35 PM on November 28, 2007

I'd like to help, but I'd have to log out! And it's cold and scary out there!

No way!!! Game over, man, game over!!!
posted by The Deej at 8:15 PM on November 28, 2007

Sweet, looks like we'll roll this out tomorrow to the rest of the site. This will let us setup a new password change form and we're adding SSL for logins to make that part secure.
posted by mathowie at 8:29 PM on November 28, 2007

No problem with special characters. Not my special characters anyways.... All Nice and purty like I like 'em.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 8:33 PM on November 28, 2007

Revised: 'All Nice and perky like I like 'em.'
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 8:35 PM on November 28, 2007

fine for me too. Am i too late?
posted by wheelieman at 8:43 PM on November 28, 2007

YAY for SSL.
posted by jeffamaphone at 8:51 PM on November 28, 2007

Works fine under Lynx 2.8.5. In case you were wondering.
posted by Upton O'Good at 9:33 PM on November 28, 2007

Works for me. Plus, logging out is good once in awhile. It reminds why we should log in.
posted by dhammond at 10:09 PM on November 28, 2007

well, it seems to have worked, although firefox didn't rememr beans for me, i guessed at the pw and was apparently correct.
posted by pjern at 11:29 PM on November 28, 2007

Finally, the login page redirects back to where you came from!

Thanks.
posted by blasdelf at 1:29 AM on November 29, 2007

Thanks PB!
posted by Jofus at 1:50 AM on November 29, 2007

It also works for yesterday's build of Firefox 3 in Linux, in case you were wondering.

Build ID: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b2pre) Gecko/2007112804 Minefield/3.0b2pre ID:2007112804
posted by Plutor at 5:19 AM on November 29, 2007

I see that you can no longer locally edit the value of USER_NAME in the cookie. Not that that had any practical use, other than how your name was shown in generated pages (but not to anyone else.)
posted by Rhomboid at 6:13 AM on November 29, 2007

I guess it worked fine for me, but I still can't dance.
posted by substrate at 7:29 AM on November 29, 2007

We can logout from Metafilter?
posted by dios at 7:37 AM on November 29, 2007

Get away from that door, dios, there is NOTHING GOOD OUT THERE!
posted by The Deej at 7:47 AM on November 29, 2007

Works seamlessly. Boooring.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:48 AM on November 29, 2007

*flips Crazy-Nutso switch on dirtdirt's account*
posted by cortex at 7:49 AM on November 29, 2007

Wrong button!

/head asplodes
posted by Jofus at 9:13 AM on November 29, 2007

qatlh 'oH vam Daq Klingonaase DaH?
posted by dirtdirt at 9:47 AM on November 29, 2007

For kicks, I tried it on my T-Mobile MDA (HTC Wizard) with Windows Mobile 5. When I log out, I get sent to http://www.metafilter.com/index.cfm?delcookie=yes and the browser just sits there blank, even when I try to refresh the page. The page isn't hanging- it's just a blank screen with no redirect. When I go back, I'm still logged in but when I refresh the page, I'm finally logged out.

When trying to log in with the beta, the same thing happens. I hang at the blank screen. When I reload this time, I get redirected to the blue (I tried logging in from the grey) and am now logged in. However, I have a big "Login Error!" message below my login information and above the first FPP.
posted by jmd82 at 9:51 AM on November 29, 2007

I tried logging in again with the old form. I get the same hanging issue and when I refresh this time, I'm logged in and on the blue, but no posts are there and I get the message, "Login Error!" again accompanied by some extra stuff this time, "The form wasn't submitted properly, there's no username defined. Go back and try again, or if you get this message frequently place contact the admins and describe your problem."
posted by jmd82 at 9:58 AM on November 29, 2007

The new form is working fine for me in Opera 9.24 and Windows Safari 3.0.4 on XP. (Yes, they make a windows safari.) For both of them, I first signed in with the old form, then signed out, then signed in with the new one. Not seeing any weirdness on recent activity.
posted by whir at 10:47 AM on November 29, 2007

Voting in projects gets this message:

The web site you are accessing has experienced an unexpected error.
Please contact the website administrator.

The following information is meant for the website developer for debugging purposes.
Error Occurred While Processing Request
Element USER_PASS is undefined in COOKIE.

Resources:

* Enable Robust Exception Information to provide greater detail about the source of errors. In the Administrator, click Debugging & Logging > Debug Output Settings, and select the Robust Exception Information option.
* Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
* Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1.10) Gecko/20071115 Firefox/2.0.0.10
Remote Address 66.126.24.4
Referrer http://projects.metafilter.com/mefi/1204
Date/Time 29-Nov-07 10:55 AM
posted by klangklangston at 10:56 AM on November 29, 2007

thanks klangklangston, should be working now.
posted by pb at 12:36 PM on November 29, 2007

I can't really test it out right now, but will the new system allow me to stay logged in on multiple computers at the same time, forever?
posted by bonaldi at 12:41 PM on November 29, 2007

When we roll this out we'll post more about how the new login system works. But yep, you should be able to log in and stay that way from multiple computers forever--until you change your password.
posted by pb at 1:41 PM on November 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

OMG PASSWORD CHANGE????????
posted by dersins at 2:19 PM on November 29, 2007

I ain't logging out. I'm sure there's some sort of nefarious plan to get rid of me and I'm on to you. So there.
*crosses arms and glares at everyone*
posted by deborah at 9:30 PM on November 29, 2007