Login Problems

January 13, 2006 4:49 PM

I always have to login to MeFi twice for it to be recognized. The first time, after I submit my login info, it just takes me back to the FP and I'm not yet logged in. The second time, it always works. Anyone know what the deal is?
posted by TunnelArmr to Bugs at 4:49 PM (20 comments total)

The query in the login script hits an index which only supports a size of 24618 rows, because of internal Oracle configurations that I can't change without upgrading (insert retarded licensing shit here). But don't feel bad. Because of this index size problem, this would actually happen 3 times to anyone with a user number over 420816, although that seems far off. There was a failover to a secondary index which excludes the first group of user numbers, but it appears to be timing out. It's not that you have to do it twice, it's that the timeout in the front-end is set too low, and your request is actually only finished by the time you fill out the form twice. Because of the limitations of the intrsuction sets of all but the most expensive custom supercomputing platforms, maximum index size and the need for incremental distribution of indexed data, on the fly, to mutiple query disapatchers, is a widespread problem in all enterprise applications nowadays. It seems no one thought past 2005 when designing enterprise platforms in the heyday of 1999. I'm afraid that the n00bs are going to have to live with this for the foreseeable future, at least until 1024-but processors are common and affordable. I just don't see any other way around this. In other words, your user number is just too high.

Just joshin'. I have no clue.
posted by scarabic at 5:07 PM on January 13, 2006

...although I'm sure that "1024-butt" processors would solve many problems.
posted by scarabic at 5:09 PM on January 13, 2006

What browser you using? Opera tends to do shit like this - too much caching of things that shouldn't be cached going on.
posted by Jimbob at 5:17 PM on January 13, 2006

but once you ARE logged in, we have real-time preview!
posted by quonsar at 5:17 PM on January 13, 2006

why are you logging out?!? what's wrong with you?
posted by blue_beetle at 5:20 PM on January 13, 2006

I would suggest doing a force-refresh of the "not-logged-in" homepage after the 1st time you try to log in. That will tell you if it's just a local cache issue.
posted by scarabic at 6:03 PM on January 13, 2006

Actually, opera only caches too much if you tell it to. Check the caching settings in your prefs.
posted by fvw at 6:08 PM on January 13, 2006

Actually, opera only caches too much if you tell it to.

In my experience, Opera has strange caching settings by default and you have to tell it not to cache, although it has improved a lot in recent releases.
posted by Jimbob at 6:24 PM on January 13, 2006

Right you are, I've just blissfully copied along my settings since version 5 and never noticed that; it defaults to checking only once every five hours. Speeds up the browsing experience I suppose, but I'm not sure it's justified.
posted by fvw at 7:17 PM on January 13, 2006

People log out? Is this a communicable disease? I fret and worry.

Seriously, don't you come any closer. I have pepper spray and Lysol.
posted by loquacious at 8:17 PM on January 13, 2006

I logged out once. Did you know theres ads on here when you log out? Weeeeeiiiirrrddd.
posted by puke & cry at 8:45 PM on January 13, 2006

Get the hell away from me, you diseased degenerate.
posted by loquacious at 9:00 PM on January 13, 2006

Not before I cough on you.
posted by puke & cry at 9:15 PM on January 13, 2006

I also have a problem while logging in: after I enter my username, password and captcha I am directed to a 'Forbidden Page'. The url has some mefi.com blah blah %20s [spaces], so I think it is a problem with the form action. I just ignore the error page and I am successfully logged in. It's only an annoyance but, you know.

OS X 10.4 safari [at work and at home, both OS X/Safari different versions of everything]

It started months ago and just happened again just now. I didn't think it was worth a MeTa post but I'd like to bring it up here.
posted by Mr T at 9:37 PM on January 13, 2006

Gah! Did you see that? Terrorism! Germ warfare! Why am I covered in goo?

*hoses down puke & cry with institutional sized drum of Lysol*
posted by loquacious at 10:28 PM on January 13, 2006

I use Firefox (1.5). I never stay logged in to anything, I have OCD about login cookies, I don't really know why. I just don't like to be auto logged-in. It's a really stupid compulsion. I tried refreshing to no avail. The weird thing is that it doesn't happen every time, only about 19 out of 20 times. So 5% of the time it works on the first try, and I feel like I've won the MeFi lottery.
posted by TunnelArmr at 11:21 PM on January 13, 2006

Actually, you have won the MeFi lottery, but your user number is too high for the automated payment system responsible for cutting your check, so you lose out on that one as well. But thanks for playing!
posted by Ryvar at 11:57 PM on January 13, 2006

I just got it again, here is the url I was talking about:

http://www.metafilter.com/,%200;%20URL=http://www.metafilter.com/

It's is where I get sent when clicking submit on the login form.

The first time I got the Verbotten I thought I was banned.
posted by Mr T at 12:29 AM on January 14, 2006

This happens from time to time using Blazer on my Lifedrive. Not a big deal, Blazer is a pretty poor browser anyway.
posted by bouncebounce at 5:33 AM on January 14, 2006

this happens from time to time using Lassie on my Lapdog. not a big deal, Lassie is a pretty poor bowser anyway.
posted by quonsar at 8:52 AM on January 14, 2006