Thread

I have a member (she belongs to a group I set up called “Editors”) who is having some strange login issues on our EE website.  This member has control panel access, and is able to log into the control panel just fine, but when she tries to log in to the members only area of the website (not the CP), she sometimes gets pushed over to a page called members/expired; in the Template Preferences Manager, when I set up Template Access Restrictions for the different member groups, the member group “Inactive” does not have access to certain templates (the member group “Editors” does have access to all templates) and if “Inactive” members try to log in, they are to be redirected to members/expired (the selection I made under the area that says “If you selected ‘no’ in any of the above: When unauthorized users try to access this page, show this one instead”).  I personally am unable to replicate this issue using her login or any other Editor login, but it is intermittently happening to her.  I am out of troubleshooting ideas, and my response of “I don’t know why this is happening to you” is just not good enough… help?

EE version 1.6.9 build 20100430
Member is using IE 8

Can you try upgrading to EE 1.7, just so we’re on the same page in terms of code? Does this only happen with IE8 or other browsers as well?

OK, so I had them test it with other browsers as well and it is with other browsers and also with any account that I have her try (I gave her two other accounts, one of which was a Super Admin, and she still is having the same results).  I cleared the CP log files, should I clear all caches and see if that help?  Also asked her the obvious, to clear her browser cache, and this made no difference.

I have to add in that I can’t replicate this issue myself, no matter what I do… is it possible that something having to do with User Session Type setting (Session and Cookies), Allow Multiple Logins (set to no) or could it be that hotels where she is trying to access are blocking packets (from what I can tell, it seems to only happen when she is traveling and using hotel internet access or wi-fi hot spots)?

Hi rapturestudio,

I think that your last comment about hotels and wifi hot-spots would be the cause of this issue. It’s possible that access points like that randomly and intermittently switch external IP addresses for the clients (they are just proxies) and so your client’s session is actually not the same (as far as EE is concerned) when she sometimes tries to login. You may be able to mitigate this by switching off Secure Forms and/or Require IP Address (Admin > System Preferences > Security and Session Preferences) though this will affect all other users as well.

Cheers

Greg

OK, so I shut off Require IP Address and that seems to work for her.  I’m still a bit confused at how she was being served up a page that her member group should never see; but for now I have my temporary fix.  I guess moving her onto a tethered smartphone or having her use a personal wi-fi hotspot device so that I can turn Require IP Address back on for better security will be the ultimate goal!  Thanks!

Glad Greg was able to help. Feel free to start a new thread if you have any more questions.