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Kbin's "Log in" bug is discouraging me from participating (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by Tetra@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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Every time I try to upvote or boost something, there's a solid 20% chance it'll link to an Error page titled "Log in". That percentage seems to increase the longer I've had my Kbin tab open without refreshing it.

Even more annoyingly, it regularily logs me off completely, forcing me to input my information again. It's especially annoying on mobile since it won't even remember my password for some reason, which was randomly generated, meaning it's a pain to re-enter it every time.

The effect is that it's making me interact with Kbin less and less, I end up just scrolling without upvoting or commenting or anything, and ultimately I also just use the site less overall.

I like it here otherwise, but this one bug is making Kbin a real chore to use, and I know a lot more people have been experiencing it for a while now.

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[–] ernest@kbin.social 130 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Ok, so in the next few days, I'll be testing some things. It might be a bit worse for a while, but it will definitely speed up the problem-solving process. I'll be grateful for any feedback. I'm unable to reproduce it in local/testing environments, so it might be an issue with the cluster.

[–] adonis@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago

Is there anything we can help with? provide logs, repeat steps, etc?

[–] DrNeurohax@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm not sure if it helps, but I wonder if this is linked to the inactivity error.

Load up any kbin thread or main page, open a new browser tab in the foreground, me around in the non-kbin tab for 15-30 minutes, and return to the kbin tab. Now any clicks on 'actions' (voting, posting, basically sending info to the server) sends you to an error page. Whatever info you were sending doesn't register (vote count or highlight, posts don't show up, etc.

I didn't have any logout problems at all until maybe a week ago. Since then I've been logged out 5+ times.

Not a big problem for me, but I could see it annoying others.

[–] Sabata11792@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen the same. Leaving an app or browser tab open for a while, then interacting, seems to cause it.

[–] Teppic@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Slightly annoyingly spending 10min drafting a comment seems to cause the same on occasion. (I guess there is no activity outside the edit box).
Fortunately if I get an error after posting, usually going back means the text is still there, then it's usually copy the text, click through to the profile of the person I was replying to and post the comment from that page. So far that almost always works.

Weirdly I don't seem to get logged out, just randomly directed to a error page when interacting (e.g. upvoting or trying to comment).

Edit: I don't think I can reliably recreate this issue...

[–] Nepenthe@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've developed a habit of copying everything I write before I hit send, because my comments tend to take a long time for me to write/format to my liking. Not because I keep losing it, but just in case.

Usually when it times out in the comments, I get brought to a page containing my lone comment box and a notification about "something-something, this page is federated, click here to return to the comments section."

So I wonder if it's really related in part to the page's continually updating federation making whatever you're trying to interact with obsolete. Though that doesn't make as much sense to me on our timelines as it does in a comment section :/

I've only had to dig around in someone else's profile twice, and that was because the notification's link to whatever reply you're trying to check doesn't seem to be mixing with numbered forum pages. By the time I check my replies, they're usually on a different page than I'm being linked to.

I don't think this has to do away with the numbering, it would just require a different method of linking (right?). But it IS one of the finer annoyances, and that I usually consent to scan/reread the entire thread looking for my avvie speaks to how stubborn I am.

[–] fearout@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Same. I’ve only ever seen this error after some time of inactivity, and reloading the page always helps.

[–] Lippy@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I've had a similar experience. Only thing I can add is that more rarely even refreshing the page doesn't resolve running into an error page when voting on some comments. However, each time I was able to visit the user's profile and vote from there without issue.

[–] tqgibtngo@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Apparently, the error condition might NOT be dependent on idle time (a period of time without any interaction). — Evidence: Periodic clicks on a vote button, scripted at 45-second intervals, did not prevent the error's eventual occurrence.

[–] e569668@fedia.io 5 points 1 year ago

This is anecdotal, but I don't experience these log outs on fedia (I have to relog like once every few days but that doesn't bother me, I assumed it was cookie expiry but maybe it has to do with server restarts or something). So I can understand if it happens more often to kbin social users it might be some other way it's set up like caching or something that others might not be running. Then again, without version info, it makes it a bit tough to debug so this might not be helpful, fedia could be running some random sha atm which might be the reason.

[–] livus@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure that for me it only happens if I'm reading a page without interacting for a while.

Then any interaction, like upvote, is error, but refreshing the original page fixes it.

(Firefox on android)

[–] HotDogFingies@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I really appreciate how proactive you are. Thank you for your hard work.

[–] Echolot@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

If I had to guess it’s probably the stickiness of the session (which user is assigned to which server on the cluster) that expires after a certain time which leads to needing a new login or in the case of the error page a CSRF token which isn’t valid on this server of the cluster.