members cannot access protected content from certain devices

[derekh]

Hi Guys,

Love working with your plugins, but this particular problem is occurring more frequently. I suspect that this is not a problem with the plugin itself, but I’m sure that this will be affecting other UK users if not others elsewhere.

Frankly we have no idea where to look next for a solution. The problem is becoming more frequent.

The problem is that about 2% of members simply cannot access the material associated with their membership level.

They log in as normal, but are then returned to the home page instead of being re-directed to the page for that level.

If they try to access any materials from direct links to the courses they are requested to login in – which sends them back to the home page and does not give them access to the materials.

Regardless of which protected content they try to reach, they end up back at the home page.

By checking their member record we can see that they are actually logged in to the system – we can see last access time and also the IP from which they originate.

We can manually log them out but the same result if they then try again.

We can log in from here using their account details, and they can go to other machines in other locations and also access the materials, but they cannot ever log in from their normal home address.

We are beginning to suspect that the issue is caused in some way by their Internet Provider – (Sky.com seems to feature in most if not all cases).

If it is Sky.com then they are major players here in the UK and elsewhere and we cannot afford to have a segment of the market excluded because of their ISP

Is it even possible that it could be this ISP – or are we now looking in the wrong directions.

Any thoughts from you guys? Has anyone else seen a similar problem?

As I say your eMember plugin is great and seems to be working, but something somewhere is not talking the same language.

Help.

[wzp]

Some ISP perform CO “page caching.” It’s an attempt to limit bandwidth, by caching pages at the CO (Central Office) level; hence it is sometimes called “edge computing.” One effective way of bypassing this sort of foolishness is to use another DNS; like Google’s instead of the one provided by the ISP. Note: Changing DNS settings will also bypass the “Sky Broadband Shield.”

Affected users must do this at the broadband modem or router level, for home devices; or on a per device basis for mobile (cellular) devices.

[derekh]

Thanks, that makes sense. Unfortunately I suspect that my users will not have the ability / competence to make the changes you have suggested.

I’ll take a search around to see if there are some really simple instructions out there.

Thanks for your help.

D

[derekh]

Users cannot log in. Further to the discussion above we are getting increasing numbers of users who simply cannot log in to our system. This appears to be common to some sky users but by no means all, and to some Mac users – but by no means all. This has now become a real administrative burden for us and we are beginning to wonder if this is a wp-emember issue. We are using Sensei and originally followed the tips and tricks videos many years ago to set up our original systems. Up until this year we have not encountered any real problems. However many hours per week are now being taken up trying to get access for some of our customers.

We cannot replicate this problem on any of the devices we use so are struggling to advise our users on any action they can take.

Have you had this issue reported elsewhere? If yes then it’s a problem outside our control. If not then it would seem to be unique to us – which is worrying.

Is there anywhere I can send access details for you to take a look please?

Thanks in advance.

[wzp]

Plugin issues are not random, and are ISP agnostic. Because the issue seems to be limited to one particular ISP, and then “not all of their users,” have you consulted with the ISP?

@admin will contact you, regarding access details; but I expect no issues to be observable, since none of us are Sky users.

[admin]

Are you using SSL certificate on your site? If you are, then are you forcing ALL users to go to the HTTPS version of your pages? If some users are going to the non-https URL and logging in then getting redirected to the https version, their authentication will drop due to security reasons. So this is something worth checking.

[Author]

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