475381 - KB article: Cannot log in to websites

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 467109

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Articles, task)

Description

[Matthew Middleton (:zzxc)]

One of the most frequently reported issues last week was users unable to log into Yahoo.  Attempting to log in just loop the user back to the login page.

The solutions that have worked for this problem have been disabling the Yahoo toolbar (if installed) and clearing Yahoo cookies.  (If it still doesn't work after these steps, cookie preferences may be wrong or cookies.sqlite might be corrupt)

Comment 1

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

This specific set of symptoms and solutions isn't specific to yahoo. I'd like to see this article and title be more generically worded and then use tags and the article intro to give examples of sites we've seen this problem on.

Comment 2

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

Ha, I knew this issue sounded familiar! There's another bug report: Bug 467109 - "KB article: Cannot log in to certain websites", which mentions Yahoo.

So do we want an article for each site, or one article covering any site? Right now, I would rather have one article, because things like clearing cookies can be applicable to most sites. If we get more specific cases, we can split the article. Any thoughts?

Comment 3

[Bo]

I belatedly noticed this is assigned to Cww.

The URL now has a draft for this. It's copy/paste from ((Error loading web sites)) for the cookies/cache part.

I link to ((Troubleshooting extensions and themes)) and ((Troubleshooting plugins)) and hint that if you have an extension for a website that you're also having trouble logging into, try disabling that. That has been the case with Yahoo! and also Gmail, if I recall correctly.

So Yahoo! is mentioned, and I put it in the folksonomy tags.

Comment 4

[Bo]

And by Cww I mean zzxc, of course...

Marking fixed, unless we want to make ones for each site. I vote for a single.

Comment 5

[Matthew Middleton (:zzxc)]

I hadn't had time to write this yet today, so thanks for fixing my bug for me.  ;)  The article in the URL should probably be in the existing bug from comment 2, bug 467109.  That bug is for the general "Cannot log into websites" article.

If a second article isn't needed specifically for Yahoo, this bug should be marked as a duplicate.  Since this is a specific common issue involving Yahoo Toolbar, creating a separate article would make it easier for people to find the solution.  A separate article would also allow us to emphasize Yahoo Toolbar as a likely cause in this case.

Comment 6

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I really have to disagree that more articles == easier to find answer. If we tag articles correctly and structure them properly we can keep the wiki easier to manage. 

Some changes I'd recommend:

"Cannot log into websites" - This will confuse users who can log in to some websites. Some people will assume the article is about not being able to log in to any website. Something like "Logging in fails on specific websites" s/specific/some maybe.

Don't be afraid of listing websites that commonly show this problem. Do it at the beginning so readers can be sure the article applies to them.

Additional steps has helpful information in it, but needs to be structured in a more helpful way. Each of those steps should have a heading. Extensions and plugins sections should list those known to cause the problem. This also gives us another chance to highlight yahoo toolbar, I think it'll get lost the way it is now.

Is basic troubleshooting appropriate here?

And a final nitpick in the form of a question: when speaking of logging in, is it correct to say into? my gut tells me the in belongs to log and so to should be separate but I have no idea on the actual grammar.

Comment 7

[Bo]

* I agree the title could be better. "Cannot log into a website," maybe? See final comment.
* What other sites do we want to list that have login problems?
* I reworked the extensions/plugins section; I think you're right to make it a step and not just a link to another page.
* I axed Basic Troubleshooting; I was thinking that it could catch cases when a firewall/antivirus is messing with things (ZoneAlarm), but it's vague on that front anyway.
* We should come up with a style policy for login/log in/logging in to/logging into. I like "login" and "log in to," personally, but that's not very consistent. "Log in" and "login" are used in various parts of the KB.

Comment 8

[[:Cww]]

I actually completely disagree with your comment, Lucy.  If we have 4 cases of broken logins this week and every single one was Yahoo, we should have a special article for Yahoo or at least a special section.  If you have trouble with logins and it's NOT yahoo, you're MUCH MUCH more likely to have corrupt cookies.sqlite rather than just one screwy cookie.  There's nothing wrong with an article on Yahoo cookie screwups (discussing deleting cookie and the toolbar) that is linked to from the generic article.

We have a specific article for Firefox doesn't work on Hotmail and we have specific article for crashes with yahoo, it's fine to have singular specific articles for single issues and I argue that this is the preferred way to do it since the user has a less daunting set of steps.

Log in is a verb, login is a noun/adjective.  So you log in with your login and password on the login screen.  And since log in is a compound verb, you generally don't combine with to, so log into is wrong.

Comment 9

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I actually completely disagree with your comment, Lucy.  If we have 4 cases of
> broken logins this week and every single one was Yahoo, we should have a
> special article for Yahoo or at least a special section.

Special section I don't disagree with, so we don't completely disagree ;) When 3 came out in the first place we had this problem all over, though mostly with Yahoo, Google and AOL (however we also had it with some forums, or other smaller sites). 

Unless a fix ONLY applies to a specific site then I don't agree with having a separate article (the two cases you cited meet this criteria, this one IMO doesn't). I do agree that this fix should be separate from the page bo pulled the content from, but if we split out the yahoo "version" we'll still need the other which will be almost identical.

Comment 10

[Bo]

Cww's grammar/usage convention sounds good to me. I renamed the article and now we "log in to websites with our login," not "log into web sites with our log in information" and such. I'll search the KB later for places where this is used inconsistently.

Here's what I think we should do here: One article, with the fixes listed in order of probability that they'll work.
1) Most common is a single bad cookie. This is the first thing to do, and it's easy.
2) If your problem is with a certain web site, check to see if you have an extension/plugin associated with that site. If so, go check out ((Troubleshooting extensions and themes)) or ((Troubleshooting plugins)) to disable it.
3) If you problem is with all web sites, you should check your extensions and plugins anyway to rule them out. NoScript could be interfering 0r the BitTorrent plugin could be interfering, and those aren't associated with certain websites. Once that's ruled out, we can try a cookies.sqlite fix.

So what's the best way for treating a corrupt cookies.sqlite file? Will using Clear Private Data/Clear Recent History work, or do we need to open up the profile folder and delete it?

Comment 11

[[:Cww]]

A cookies.sqlite can also affect just one or two websites, so make sure that's clear.

You'll have to open up the profile folder and delete.  Make sure that Firefox is completely closed first.

Comment 12

[Bo]

OK, that's done.

Do we want to add any parting thoughts? Is firewall/Internet security software common enough to include? I remember a few ZoneAlarm-related ones, but not that many.

If not, ready for review.

Comment 13

[[:Cww]]

I'm reviewing and added a section on enabling cookies (since we should probably check that first).  I just realized that we DID have http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Websites+say+cookies+are+blocked so I'm going to merge the two docs and then link Websites say cookies are blocked to Cannot log in to websites.

Comment 14

[[:Cww]]

Done and approved.

Comment 16

[Tom Ellins [:TMZ]]

Verified Dup