Thread

Hi all,

For some reason I can’t login to one of my site’s control panel, the page just refreshes. I tried a password reset and used the new password but no luck.

Not sure what version of EE I am in as can’t login to check, it’s version 2, a few months old I think, not the latest version.

Many thanks
Simon

Hi Simon,

I’m sorry to hear you’ve run onto this trouble!

There are a few things to try. Be sure to clear any browser cookies related to this site. If you have access to the database, you can empty the exp_security_hashes table and try logging in afterwards.

If all else fails, open /system/expressionengine/config/config.php and add or edit these values:

$config['cookie_domain'] = ''; 
$config['cookie_path'] = '';
$config['cookie_prefix'] = '';

Cheers,

With what browser you’re using ?

And what hosting use for this site.

Hey koko.pelli,

Any updates for us?

Cheers,

Hi there,

We are having the exact same problem with our site.  It has been working perfectly for a while, but all of a sudden - this happens.

We have tried all of the fixes on these forums, but no luck - including the one above.

We are using the latest version of EE. 

I can login using Firefox, but with no other browser.

Any help urgently appreciated!

Hi Matt,

I’m sorry for your trouble here!

I can login using Firefox, but with no other browser.

It would be really great if you could be specific with browsers and OS versions.

What server environment are you running? Are you using any add-ons? Do you have MSM installed?

Cheers,

Hi…

We are trying to use the latest Safari 6, but no luck.  IE, no luck (any versions).  But with Firefox 14 we can log in.

If we change the settings in the admin panel under sessions and security to ‘Session ID only’ we can log in on any browser.  Changing this back to cookies and ID just refreshes the login page.

There is obviously a cookie problem - but we don’t know what it is.  We don’t have MSM installed.

It’s weird as the site has been running fine on this same server ever since we installed a couple months ago - and all of a sudden it just stops. 

It is a Linux VPS hosted by 123-reg.

Hey mattprice2,

Are you possible behind a load balancer or anything like that?

Thank you,

Not that I know of - no server config has changed since we loaded the site onto it.  It worked fine before. 

It’s a bang your head against a desk problem this one.

Hey Matt,

What do you have for your cookie settings under Admin->Security and Privacy->Cookie Settings

If that looks in order, we’ll probably get in for a look-see to run some tests.

Cheers,

Currently we have it set to ‘Session ID only’ as this is the only way we can access the system.  In fact, we cannot access the system at all now on any browser!

If we change it back to normal, as in ‘Session and Cookies’ - it just refreshes the page on login.  It is also affecting some front end functions such as profile edits etc.

I have PM’d you access info for the site - if you could have a quick look that would be great - but we are really stuck.

Just tried to PM you but says your inbox is full?

Hi Matt,

Not full, disabled for security 😊

Plus, a rash of login details in a PM inbox would be untenable. So, we have a method, and that is for you to respond to an email that you should be receiving shortly.

Cheers!

Replying here as I suspect the information will be helpful to multiple people.

I suspect the problem is the server localization setting.  Double check with your host that the timezone is properly configured and that you know the server’s timezone.  And that it’s entered correctly in EE!

I believe it’s working for the moment as I overrode the default session length by adding these two variables to the config file:

$config['user_session_ttl'] = '72000';  // 7200 2 hours
$config['cp_session_ttl'] = '72000'; // 3600 1 hour

So- I upped the session length to 20 hours, which is a bit extreme.  Heh.  But it’s a quick and easy way to confirm that the problem has to do with the session length being cut off due to confusion as to what time it is now.  And that confusion is most likely due to an issue with the server tz settings- either on the server level, in EE, or both.

Make sense what’s going on there?  Double check those settings and hopefully a tweak there eliminates the need to set the long session length.

Good Afternoon,

I experienced this same thing with a single instance of EE installed.

As soon as I changed the cookie settings (just the first one to set cookies for the entire domain), it wouldn’t allow me to login. Add the blank config values to config.php, but do you know if that is a formal bug with the product now? Or could it have been that I put in a bad value?

I had inserted .<my-domain>.com in Cookie Domain field.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,