AOL users can't Login (or remain logged in) to Joomla sites

[ia2ca]

I can confirm that using level 2 in 1.0.12 does not correct the issue (I end up sending out about 3 emails/week to people saying they can't register - all on AOL). Another site I have running 1.0.15 does not allow AOL on level 3, so I just switched that one to level 2 - we'll see if it makes it any better...

[domsmooth]

Hmm. I have been having the same issue for a very long time.

I am from South Africa, and [url http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... &p=1071225]another post[/url] highlights the issue with us. A very temporary fix we have found (obviously after changing security level to 2) was to ask people logging in to tick the "Remember Me" box. It is not a robust solution, and we need to find something a little more resolute to fix the issue. What stands out for me is that there are 31 posts above this one, and more on another post, and yet, there is no response from any of the Joomla team guys. We are still a number of months away from moving the site up to 1.5, and we simply cannot wait till then to find a resolution for this, and we aren't even sure if 1.5 will address this issue. Furthermore, we are wanting to get virtuemart operating at around the same time we go to 1.5, and it concerns me that folk from South Africa (Our target market) will not be able to stay logged in long enough to complete a transaction. The problem first originated with phpBB, and then the site was moved to Joomla, and the same issue became apparent. It is really frustrating, especially since we are wanting to position ourselves as the number 1 in our game, but our site lets us down... Please, Team, we appeal to you to let us know what the solutions are! I have almost given up hope, but in my game we are told that for every problem there is an engineering solution. I am by no means a php engineer, and so can offer myself any solution, but you guys built the thing. There must be something that can be done, even as a hack, and then incorporated into 1.0.16 (if there will be one...)

Thanks in advance

[rayge]

We are in the same boat and have tried the AOL FIX for the level 2 authentication. I had modified the login to ALWAYS have remember me checked as a hidden value and none of it is helping.

This has been going on for well over 5 months with almost 10k users so its not been a happy road to say the least.

I'm with domsmooth on the issue of trying 1.5. What if we try and migrate to it and it Still doesnt work? what a hell of a waste of time! IT would be nice to simply fix this once and for all rather than migrate all the stuff we would have to. this is a ridiculously huge site that we have as it is.

What i would liek to figure out is how to add some debugging info sending me all the browser / session data in an email to me for the people with issues and see if i can find a trend. Im thinking of adding session / cookie info to the not authorized function mosNotAuth() but im not sure if it would help us find the key to this issue.

ANY OTHER IDEAS???

[rayge]

Has anyone been able to solve this issue?

[ia2ca]

To help with the administration, I posted a FAQ for my AOL users explaining the situation in detail. Haven't received a single tech-support request from anyone since posting it, and only have one AOL user that hasn't activated. Not a 'fix', but a band-aid!

[gwmbox]

What did you tell your AOL users to do in your FAQ?

[ia2ca]

In a nutshell, minimize their AOL session and use the full version of either Firefox or IE (or Safari) and they'll stay logged in (rather than AOL's built-in browser).

[drystone wall]

I have just recently seen this issue myself. I run a small community site for a town in the UK. We are running Joomla 1.0.15 as we did not believe Joomla 1.5 was ready (site established in April 2008).

My experience too is that Security Level Access 2 does not address the problem, but I see also in access logs that we are being occasionally bombarded with hotlink hackers looking to post their cr*p via proxy IPs - this often fixed by an htaccess referal block. But my point here is about lowering the security of Joomla to accommodate what is to us about 10% of our users.

What I have found is that users with AOL broadband (and the resulting dynamic IP proxies) +++ the AOL browser is the main issue.

In my case, things have been fixed by asking prospective users who sign up and then email to say they have a problem is to propose they use another browser. In my experience, using ANY other browser under these condition apart from the AOL browser and the problem is resolved. I know this does not get to the heart of the main issue, in that this is a session authentication problem in the login, but it IS a solution which many appear to accept and respond to.

Perhaps someone should be complaining to AOL about their browser, which to my eye appears to be based upon the IE6 engine. I know this is perhaps wishful thinking, but it does look like Joomla is NOT going to address this - picking up on the point that it's been many many months since this thread was first started, and no-one from the Joomla Dev team has responded.

Might I also say, there was an issue in Vbulletin about this (if my memory serves me right) - I have a global Vb site too.

IP proxies are the bane of site devs and admins - AOL operate this system because (and likely) it is a cost-based solution, as, and if, you were to create an ISP hub today, you wouldn't start from here - rant over!