181567 - Page fails to display correctly due to cookie problem.

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Networking: Cookies, defect)

Description

[Don Albertson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020826
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020826

You may need to start at:
http://www.ohr.psu.edu/EMPLMENT/current.cfm
and select the link near the top of the page that says [Previous Vacancies
Applied For]

this brings a login screen at URL:
https://secureweb.ohr.psu.edu/ph2/logon.cfm

You may need to establish a userid and password at this site in order to
duplicate the problem.

When I attempt to log in and have Preferences | Privacy and Security | Cookies
set to anything more restrictive than Allow all, I get no data on this screen or
sometimes a message saying cookies must be enabled.  But I can never get the
login to succeed.

Using the hated I.E. product with cookies running wild I can login.
Using an old copy of Navigator 4.75 on Redhat Linux 7.0 I can login with cookies
enabled for All.

I thought it was an IE specific behavior that the site was relying on until I
found I could get access via the older Netscape product.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Set preferences to cookies from originating site only.
2.Go to http://www.ohr.psu.edu/EMPLMENT/current.cfm
3.select the link near the top of the page that says [Previous Vacancies Applied
For]
4. IF the login screen appears, THEN you may need to create an account and then
see if it will allow you to login afterward.
  ELSE IF the login screen does not appear then you are seeing the problem.
5. Reset cookies to allow all and repeat steps 1-4.
   

Actual Results:  
When cookies are not set to full, nothing.
When cookies were set to full the login failed.

Expected Results:  
In step 4 it should display the login screen and the login should succeed

Comment 1

[Stephen P. Morse]

Probably another dup of bug 181440.  Reopen if you disagree.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 181440 ***

Comment 2

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

i disagree :-)

bug 181440 is a recent regression caused by darin http interface change.
But the reporte use an old build : Gecko/20020826 which can't be affected by
this bug.

Comment 3

[Stephen P. Morse]

Sorry, I didn't notice the date of the build.

Since it is so old, I would recommend that the reporter retry this with a recent
build.  A lot has changed in the cookie code since August.  If it still occurs,
then please attach a cookie log to this bug report (see nsCookies.cpp for
instructions on creating a cookie log).

Comment 4

[Don Albertson]

Installed 1.2b build id 2002101717 (for Linux 7) and made further observations.  
I believe that there are 2 difficulties one of which is a quirk of the
originating site.

With a fresh installation went to URL:
http://www.ohr.psu.edu/EMPLMENT/current.cfm

Selected link at top of page with text:
[Previous Vacancies Applied For] (See 'Help' for explanation)

Mozilla informed me I needed PSM so went back, downloaded, installed.
Returned to URL, clicked on link.  Got Message from originating site saying
cookies are required.  I believe this is a quirk of their site because:

After returning to:
http://www.ohr.psu.edu/EMPLMENT/current.cfm

and scrolling down until a position with an "Apply" input button and clicking on
the button the browser displays a new page with another input button that should
be clicked to apply.  I did NOT click on that button.  I hit the Back button in
Mozilla which returned me to http://www.ohr.psu.edu/EMPLMENT/current.cfm. 
Scrolled up to the top and again selected the link with text:
[Previous Vacancies Applied For] (See 'Help' for explanation)

Now the logon screen is displayed.  
But the logon fails.  

As repeating this sequence of events in IE 6.0 results in logon success, there
seems to be some problem in Mozilla.

Hope this clarifies rather than muddies.
dga 

Comment 5

[Tom Everingham]

Don,  do you see this happening if you logon normally from the main page as
opposed to jumping in to the middle of the web site?  This worked when I did it
that way.  Also, If I follow the steps in your first comment, I see the same
problem as you did when using NS 4.78 and IE 5.5.  So I am thinking that this
site was designed to work that way - ie. you need to login normally to set a
cookie so the site can later detect it.  Of course if I am wrong and you still
see this, could you attach a cookie log as Steve suggested in comment #3.   thx.

Comment 6

[Don Albertson]

Since installing 1.2 I verified that the "your browser doesn't support cookies"
message is site specific rather than a problem with Mozilla.  However,
regardless of what I do to get to their login page I have never had a successful
login with Moz; only with NS 4.75 and IE 6.0

Comment 7

[Tom Everingham]

hmm, that is strange.  I am still able to login but I have to use your steps in
comment #4.  (I can't find the page I entered from yesterday).  Works for me
using a current trunk on windows and linux.  The only thing I can think of is
maybe it is specific to the moz1.2 build.  I will check into that but it will
have to wait a few days.   Regardless, this site does seem to have a few
problems which could be contributing to what you are seeing.

Comment 8

[Suresh]

tever: any update on this one?  thx!

Comment 9

[Tom Everingham]

OK, I think I reproduced this on 1.2b.  It wouldn't let me log in using the
steps we discussed above.  (unless I typed my password in incorrectly 3 times
which I doubt).   I installed the 1.3a from Dec 13 and now it is working.  The
site needs some work but I can log in using the same steps as in IE and NS4x.

Don, Can you do us one more favor and try 1.3a?  Thanks.  - Tom

Comment 10

[Darin Fisher]

marking WORKSFORME based on tever's last comment.  please reopen if the problem
is reproducible using a recent build.

Comment 11

[Don Albertson]

The login problem appears to be corrected.  Once I get to the login screen, I
can now login with username and pw.  The (related?) issue of not being able to
get to the  login screen from their "positions previously applied for" link does
not appear to be resolved.  

In I.E. the cookie from several weeks past appears to be present as the login
screen displays.
In 1.3a (2002121215) the "you must have cookies enabled" message continues to
appear.  If I apply for another position, I get to the login screen and can
login correctly.  While in this section, I can see cookies from
secureweb.ohr.psu.edu in the cookie manager listing.  After leaving it via the
logout button, the cookies are no longer present in the cookie manager listing.
 This leads to the "you must have cookies enabled" message.

Comment 12

[Tom Everingham]

Don, upon logging out, the site is re-setting the cookies with an expiration
date of 1969 (originally 2037) .  This will remove the cookies from your system
immediately.  I would imagine it is being done for security reasons.

You can prove this to yourself by going to the prefs and setting the 'Ask me
before setting' cookies option.  It will show you the times/dates of the cookies
sent on logout.   At that point you can either accept the cookie or not which
will keep the old 2037 dated cookie on your system.   So that part appears to be
working as it is supposed to also.

marking verified