Not being able to log in — "The NeverEnding Story"?

TuDiabetes Website
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Continuing the discussion from Please Report TuDiabetes Website Issues:

I also am … less happy with how this is working. :rage: I actually find it, well, infuriating in two ways.

First, simply that it keeps happening. I find that, as you described, I am not able to log into Discourse proper (tudiabetes.org/forum) even though I am (always?) successfully logged in to the WordPress side. It drives me mad that there is nothing I can think of to do when this happens other than grit my teeth and wait it out.

I can’t even try to report the problem because I can’t get access to Discourse to do so. :angry:

I have also noticed that even when things appear to work well for me in one context, say Chrome on my desktop, they continue to fail in another context such as Chrome on my iPad running iOS 8 or even a different browser (Firefox) on my desktop.

And then this happened. Program syntax errors such as the one below in one of the log in/registration PHP modules started getting thrown. Seriously? Syntax errors? I lack words to properly convey my shock. :scream:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘’ (T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE), expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or number (T_NUM_STRING) in /home/tudia/public_html/wp-content/plugins/users-ultra-pro/xooclasses/xoo.userultra.register.php on line 741

But what continues to exasperate me the most is the near complete lack of status updates on this situation. When you have an ongoing problem like this, I feel the user community should get at least daily updates. Even if the update is only “it’s still broken”. At least the update reassures them that something is happening. That someone realizes they are there.

I think I understand why this does not happen. When you are actively working a problem, posting “nothing yet” status seems pointless. It’s time wasted that could be spent actually trying to fix the dang thing. However, this completely misses the point that the lack of feedback makes the larger community feel that no one is either aware of their frustration or that no one cares about it.

So … what the hell is going on? Why is this taking so long?

And has anybody bothered to talk to the damn duck about it? :confounded: Rubber-duckies Rubber Duck Problem Solving

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I thought it was just me! I tried my smartphone first, then IE and Chrome on my laptop at home, and last my desktop at work. :frowning: I’m glad I’m not alone in this black hole.

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Thank goodness I’m not the only one. I use Firefox on a Windows 7 desk top machine. Some things I’ve discovered. If I pause Blocking on the Ghostery system that blocks pop up ads it works more often than if blocking is on, but not every time either way! If I go straight to the Tudiabetes site from my home page it usually works OK, but again not every time.

I have found that If I select a discussion topic & log in to add a reply it works, but as soon as I back out of the discussion I’m logged off again.

This is so frustrating it removes all benefits of this site, it’s also not good for my blood pressure!

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I’m really sorry for the radio silence on my end about this issue, all! It’s an absolute breakdown of communication on my part and I truly apologize.

Here’s what’s been going on: our developers have been working really hard to figure out the variety of login/logout issues for over a week, and every time another issue is reported I pass it along to them for further detail to help them figure it out. For technical reasons that I don’t understand, it’s an incredibly complicated issue (involving our servers and redirects and a slew of other things). We have 3 people working on it and as of last night we think some progress has been made, but we’re obviously not out of the woods yet.

This issue is being treated as our absolute priority, and I assure you that it will be resolved as soon as possible. Again, I’m so sorry I have not been updating you. I’ll rectify that lapse of communication going forward.

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Kate25, it is true it is hard to get a read on everyone’s experiences on this site. I also thought I was the only one, but apparently not.
I am beginning to wonder if they need to look for another server or whatever you call the product or support site.
Kathimb gives a convoluted workaround on the “Please Report…” thread. But it is ridiculous to have to do that.
I am not sure there is going to be a magical day when all this is fixed but I do keep hoping, rather crazily!

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We will get everything fixed. Please know that, even if you can’t log in to report an issue, the footer on the homepage will always have a Contact Us form that you can fill out and send to us. We want you all to know that we’re working night and day, all day, to find solutions to the things that don’t work for you. We have the top people at Discourse and other sophisticated developers working with us to iron out the wrinkles. We understand that patience is wearing thin (who could blame you?!), but we’re listening to everything and we care.

As for status updates, we have to have the developers be able to reproduce the problems we describe. And when the problems don’t happen consistently, it takes time. One of our developers spent a couple hours yesterday literally logging in and out of tudiabetes. In. Out. In. Out.

I’m sorry it’s been frustrating for the community.

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glad it’s not just me getting logged out over and over…

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Perhaps you’re not describing the login/ out issue or developer responses properly? (Sorry, on mobile right now, so my ability to edit may make this a poor post.)

Once on a page where you CAN login, I think you can spend hours logging in/out without problem. The problem is navigating away from that page to a discussion, and seeing the dreaded “Login” button.

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One workaround I found on my computer ( don’t have other devices)—if I have that log in-out issue, I back out and come in from a notification that I keep saved in my Inbox and then there is no problem…

It is hard to describe properly how disconcerting and difficult I find this new site—no words I have used quite express it so it is understood. But I keep trying, visiting at least once/day. Don’t know what else to do…

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PS…Because I still find it all confusing, like a large jigsaw puzzle with about a dozen pieces missing, it is not that often I can locate something to comment on where my input would be of use to anyone. I at least figured out how to start a discussion. That’s something, I guess. Though I don’t understand why they are called Discussion “Groups”. They just seem like discussions to me.

Plus: it seems trivial in relation to other problems, but I still find the badges and ratings totally off-putting, like this place is a competitive game of some kind.

I did not at all enjoy having to search all over for the blogs for D-Blog week—and they are presented as plain, old ordinary posts, which is not how I have ever thought of the blogging we do. I did figure out the silly hamburger thing which makes it quicker to find posts that are blog-oriented…Onward, at least, if not always Upward of late…

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One key aspect of this issue seems to be that when you go from the WP side to the Discourse side your credentials (login status) is lost. This is true even if you are actually logged into Discourse properly. Often this can be remedied by drilling down in to a topic or just popping up a notification. And a refresh or clicking the login button will automagically make Discourse suddenly remember your credentials without your having to login. The issue is that if you click login after arriving at the Discourse top page it appears to actually not really be in Discourse so the login button is messed up. Again, at this point if you just drill down anywhere on some topic or something and then refresh your page or click login my experience is that this kick starts Discourse and you will be logged in

So here are some workarounds

  1. When going from the WP side (TuD homepage) when you arrive on the Discourse side, select an arbitrary topic to enter then refresh the page Ctrl-R or or click login.
  2. When you are reading discussions in Discourse and wish to go to the top to see the list of topics, DO NOT select the “discussions groups” link shown below

    Selecting that link will bring you back to the WP and make Discourse lose your credentials and you will see the login button again.
    Instead do a two step process, select the topic link like show below, this will bring you to the top of the topic you are reading.
    721×60 9.08 KB

    Then you will also be TuDiabetes.org logo which can be selected to take you to the actually top of the Discourse discussion forum.

    Selecting the TuDiabetes logo link instead of the “discussion groups” link should work consistently to bring up the top level list of topics. If you use this process to navigate through the discussion forums you should hopefully never be kicked out (I probably never should say never).

I hope @EmilyC, @Melissa_Lee and the developers can use this repeatable description to help track down the problem.

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there is something fundamentally wrong (IMO) with a website that requires so much instruction to use it, and so many “sides” (WP and discourse??? WTH?) and like someone mentioned the other day, why are THREADS referred to as DISCUSSION GROUPS? Wouldn’t DISCUSSIONS be a more apt description. I feel we spend more time navigating this website’s foibles than discussion diabetes. Nothing irks me more than trying over and over and over just to get logged in. rant off

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Wordpress allows us our own look, allows us to have video interviews, allows us to have Chat. If we were Discourse only, you’d get nothing but the forums.

Discussion Groups is just what Discourse calls Discussions. I don’t think the semantics matter much.

Please report login problems to the admins so that admins, staff, and developers can continue to troubleshoot them.

We couldn’t stay where we were and had to build what we have from scratch. I hope you’ll stay with us as we make it what you expect it should be.

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Actually, I think the term “Discussion Groups” is entirely a TuDiabetes site wording choice. I have not seen the term used on either try.discourse.org or meta.discourse.org.

Can someone tell me if this term can be found anywhere other than in the button bar at the top of a TuDiabetes page (when viewing the site with a Mac or Windows PC browser) as shown in the screenshot below?

I have no idea what the thought process was that lead to using the term. As a guess perhaps it’s another way of saying “Discussion Categories”. If people tend to find this confusing I would think it would be rather trivial to change the label on the button to simply “Discussions”.

Emily Coles aka @EmilyC , what do you think? Maybe something to put on the list of things to tweak when time permits?

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@irrational_John I’d like it to say “Topics” or “Latest Topics” but anyway

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Totally agree!

:two_hearts: the community here and looking forward to removing these under the saddle burrs.

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@Brian_BSC-----I didn’t even understand that there were two platform thingeys involved. That explains a lot, I think…

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Actually there are more than two platforms, chat is also separate platform in some sense. And while this explains the strange behavior, the intent was never to have it work that way. It was supposed to be totally seamless and that is what the development team is working to achieve.

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Does the development team, whoever they are, have any realistic hope of achieving a “seamless” platform with problem-free log-ins? I seriously wonder if they have any reason to believe that platform seamlessness is possible.
I know they are working hard and for long hours but is ‘working hard,’ and even hopefully smartly, going to accomplish the goal? Any evidence to that effect?

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Until today, we had not been able to replicate the issue that members are having. Now that our development team has been able to see it, we have identified a potential fix and are working to implement it after additional testing. We have every reason to believe it will be resolved asap.

Thanks, everyone. Your help in explaining the issue has been instrumental in getting it fixed.

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