"Authentication Failed"

[Giulia]

I'm not really asking a question about this (because it's been explained o'er and o'er)  so much as I am making a comment upon it.  The more times I get the "authentication failed" message, for WHATEVER reason and I don't really care what that reason might be (could be a "time out" because we've left our response or blog too long before pressing the post button, or it could be a graphic that is not accepted for whatever reason or....) I am less likely to attempt to post ANYTHING on this new platform each time I keep getting that message.  And I seem to get it a lot.  My point being the  "Authentication Failed" messages are not helpful nor conducive to posting material on this site.  And thus communication at large is practically if not psychologically inhibited, I think.  (MOO - My Opinion Only)  

[CommunityAdmin · Accepted solution]

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@Giulia wrote:

The more times I get the "authentication failed" message, for WHATEVER reason and I don't really care what that reason might be (could be a "time out" because we've left our response or blog too long before pressing the post button, or it could be a graphic that is not accepted for whatever reason or....) 

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@Giulia Thanks for your comment.  I get the uncertainty you feel when you see this error message. I'll see if we can get the message improved. Possibly we can provide a suggestion like I have here if that error is encountered. It's simple to get by but I get how it can be confusing.

For security purposes since the site at-large potentially contains health information we can't perpetually leave you logged in. The "Failed Authentication" message will only appear when the site hasn't been refreshed in a while and you're auto-logged out.  I typically have a couple community tabs open. It's not often that I see the error but I have seen it on occasion. I likely don't see it as even if I am composing a long post and on the reply page for a while, I am likely viewing the community on another tab and that is refreshing my connectivity to the site. This could help you as well.  For example: if you bring up a new members discussion topic or journal article and you compose a message for a while and then stop and walk away for an hour and then come back and compose some more, the site will have been saving every 30 seconds. The site may still appear logged in since you're still on the page you were on before you left but in reality it may be logged out.  If you click on another tab in your browser and navigate to another page it's going to re-authenticate and ensure that you're logged in. Then if you return to the tab you were composing a response in and then click post, It will likely post the response without issue.  If you were still get an error then you can click the "back" button on your browser and then it should reload your post with all of the content (within the last 30 seconds that was saved) and authenticate you. If everything looks right, then click the Post button again and it should should post successfully without an error. 

The errors shown when there is a problem is specific to the error that is happening. I do encounter errors/warnings on the site on occasion but it's not frequent. The most common one is when there is some HTML that has been removed. That message is just acknowledgement that  hidden code has been removed to ensure that there isn't anything unneeded or malicious posted on the site that could have come in when copied from another source (another website, Word Document, etc).

You will not see this message "Failed authentication" error message if there is an error with an image. You'll see a different error that is more specific to the image.

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@Giulia wrote:

 I am less likely to attempt to post ANYTHING on this new platform each time I keep getting that message.  And I seem to get it a lot.  My point being the  "Authentication Failed" messages are not helpful nor conducive to posting material on this site.  And thus communication at large is practically if not psychologically inhibited, I think.  (MOO - My Opinion Only)  

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Hopefully the errors/warnings can be improved as I mention above. When you encounter them, now you know above on how to get your post posted even if you haven't refreshed the page in a while either because the page has sat or you were composing for a while. 

Newer members aren't as likely to post long posts.  Yes, certainly there are some exceptions but for the most part I would guess it takes less than 5 minutes for the average post to be composed so it's not likely that many people are encountering the error. 

I'll try to find out how long you can be on a page without refreshing before it times out. I suspect though that if you're browsing the site and then composing and posting replies within 20 minutes of loading any given page that it will post without issue. Once I find out the time-limit you could keep track for a day and see how often you see the message and indicate how long you were on the page from when you loaded it until you posted.

It is really helpful with e-commerce sites when you put something in the cart that it will give you a certain amount of time (on a visible count-down clock) before the item is removed. Perhaps something like that could be developed for the community so people know if they've been logged out.

[Giulia]

And it's happening again.  You say: " For security purposes since the site at-large potentially contains health information we can't perpetually leave you logged in. The "Failed Authentication" message will only appear when the site hasn't been refreshed in a while and you're auto-logged out. '"

Haven't logged out.  Was maybe an hour since the post I was writing hadn't yet been sent and I came back to it to continue.  And no, I'm not sending any more screen shots, just - this is the second or third time now that I've been wanting to post something and get this message.  And please, I know all about retrieving content on here.  No further instructions are necessary.  Just an FYI.  And continued reasons why I don't post on X any more.  (And God how I wish there were a way to stop comments like we used to be able to.  And like they do on other platforms.)  

[MarilynH]

{{{{{{{{{{{ I miss you @Giulia I miss your posts }}}}}}}}}}

{{{{{{{{{{ The new and struggling quitters need your insights }}}}}}}}}}

{{{{{{{{{{ It would be so nice to get you back }}}}}}}}}}

{{{{{{{{{{ Come on techies please improve this platform }}}}}}}}}}

[CommunityAdmin]

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@MarilynH wrote:

{{{{{{{{{{ Come on techies please improve this platform}}}}}}}}}}

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We've made several improvements and are continuing to work on things in general. Specific to this issue, we have updated some of the errors (that people have identified or I have encountered myself) since this post was originally posted in June. If there are errors that members are seeing that haven't been updated to be more user-friendly then I'll need a screenshot or copy of the error so that we can get it re-written to be more user-friendly. I may not encounter the errors some of you see. As of right now the site is working as expected in this regard.

Separately I have made a request to Khoros (Community provider) to provide a pop-up warning when authentication token has failed so that people see it before they click the reply, post or comment buttons however they haven't decided if they will do that so we'll have to wait on them. It's not something that we're able to implement ourselves.

[CommunityAdmin]

@Giulia What you experienced is supposed to happen. No screenshots required. A similar thing happened with Jive but it gave a message that offered minimal explanation. I'll see what I can do to improve the message but I have updated some of the error messages already to be more user-friendly. 

Yes, if you leave the computer on the same page for an hour the authentication token will expire because you haven't been changing pages to keep it current. For statistical purposes we also don't want to count that you've been active on the site if you've been in the other kitchen baking/cooking. But that happens with most websites I use, even those that don't have medical information on them. So while you haven't been really been fully "logged out", for security purposes the page needs to be reloaded. (Similarly, if I'm on Target and I've put something in my cart that ends up going out of inventory the cart will need to be refreshed when I come back to my computer so that I know if I can do a drive-up order or not.) If you've been composing a comment on a discussion or journal or composing a discussion it's been auto saving every 30 seconds until the authentication token expires. So if you are in the middle of composing something (except for a Private message) but don't post it and you go away from the computer for an hour, when you get back you'll need to reload your page so that the token can be refreshed. It should ask you if you want to load or discard the draft that's been saving. Click load and then you can continue composing or post. 

I've intentionally turned off the ability to turn off comments as it was mostly causing frustration with frequent need for explanation as members weren't understanding why they couldn't comment on certain posts. In several cases people were enabling it without realizing what it did and then asking why they weren't getting comments and others were thinking that I was blocking comments. In a few cases people were also posting journals that attacked certain members of the community and then blocked the comments. This is an online community where people converse asynchronously. I'd like to hear what the purpose/vision would be to enable people to block comments on their journals/discussions?

[CommunityAdmin · Accepted solution]

I had updated the text previously. If you encounter this error it now reads: 

Oops, you've been automatically logged out because your session timed-out due to inactivity. If you were in the process of posting and are now seeing this error, your content may not be lost as the site regularly auto-saves most things. Private Messages don't have auto-save, sorry! To attempt to still post your auto-saved content, click the Back button in your web browser and then attempt to post again. If you were not in the process of posting, simply reload your browser to log back in and resume participating on the EX Community.

If you encounter a different error then it could be a different issue. Having a copy of the error you see will help us figure out what is happening.

[Barbscloud]

@CommunityAdmin Thanks for the specific message that actually addresses the issue so the end user understands what the problem is that they encountered.   Then we know what to do!  😊

Barb