Login with Internet Explorer fails

[johmue]

Hi,

I've been searching about this topic now for a while without helpful result.

I am observing that a login using Internet Explorer (tested 8.x and 9.x) leads back to the login page. Unfortunately I don't have Internet Explorer available while having access to the server's logfiles. So I can't really experiment. Maybe I will be able to do that next week end.

For now I have only some lines of the logfile:

Using Mozilla:
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:48:29 +0200] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 2918 "-" "Mozilla
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:48:36 +0200] "POST /login/signIn HTTP/1.1" 200 511 "http://scienca-revuo.info/" "Mozilla"
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:48:36 +0200] "GET /user HTTP/1.1" 200 3216 "-" "Mozilla"
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:49:27 +0200] "GET /login/signOut HTTP/1.1" 200 347 "http://www.scienca-revuo.info/user" "Mozilla"
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:49:27 +0200] "GET /login HTTP/1.1" 200 2986 "-" "Mozilla"


Using MSIE:
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:47:31 +0200] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 2918 "-" "MSIE"
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:47:39 +0200] "POST /login/signIn HTTP/1.1" 200 456 "http://www.scienca-revuo.info/login?source=%2Fuser" "MSIE"
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:47:40 +0200] "GET /user HTTP/1.1" 200 362 "-" "MSIE"
x.x.x.x - - [22/Oct/2012:07:47:40 +0200] "GET /login?source=%2Fuser HTTP/1.1" 200 3003 "-" "MSIE"
(after this only GETs on .css and .js files)

My rewrite rules:

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/sr/$1


Any ideas? Any hints what further experiments to do?

Thank you very much

Johannes

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

Have you seen this FAQ entry?

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Hi Alec,

the browsers are accepting cookies from the site.

Johannes

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

Does the same user (on the same computer) have the ability to test with another browser to see if it is indeed a browser-specific problem?

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Yes, it is browser specific.

Login by MSIE fails. Same user, same computer, different browser (Firefox) succeeds.

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

What security level settings are you using in IE?

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Security level in MSIE: Medium. I did not try below that.

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

Try flushing all cookies on your browser; it might be that there is a cookie with the same name in a higher path that is taking precedence. Otherwise, try a) testing with an even lower security setting, just for the purposes of debugging, and b) testing with IE from another machine, to see if it's something specific to the one computer.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Tried all this, flushed cookies and made IE accept all cookies. Same behavior.

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

Does another machine running the same browser behave the same way?

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Yes,

I could only test it today. Other machine, other network, same browser, same behavior.

Johannes

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

Can you try our test drive installation with IE to see if you're able to log in there? See http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs_demo for details.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Hi again,

sorry for the long delays.

I am really getting desperate. The test drive works, my site does not. I took the ojs-2.3.8.tar.gz and setup a new site with new data base. No rewrite rules whatsoever, no additional locale is in my "real" site. Result: even logging in the admin user with MSIE fails.

I also tried version 2.4.1 and the patch http://pkp.sfu.ca/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=7957

Same result.

Which version does the test drive use? Is the config.inc.php of the test drive available somewhere?

Johannes

[asmecher]

Hi Johannes,

The testdrive installation is currently 2.3.7, but the login handling code hasn't changed appreciably in newer versions. The config file contains defaults except for the DB config and session_check_ip setting, which is disabled.

Check your cookie path for the OJSSID cookie -- though I'm not sure why only IE would behave this way.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[johmue]

Hi

I think I got it now:

I changed the following:

base_url = "http://www.scienca-revuo.info"
to
base_url = "http://scienca-revuo.info"

and

base_url[sr] = "http://www.scienca-revuo.info"
to
base_url[sr] = "http://scienca-revuo.info"

This did the trick for some reason, but only in combination with the patch http://pkp.sfu.ca/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=7957

Still I don't understand why as I have a testing site using the base_url http://testo.scienca-revuo.info with the same configuration, which works. Why would it work with "testo." but not with "www."?

Anyhow. I can live with not having www. in front, so the problem seems to be solved for now. I tested it now with two versions of IE on three machines. More tests I will do, when I have access to differen windows machines.

Thanks for your help and patience. Hopefully I will not need to come back with this.

Johannes