Cookie Problem, Internet Explorer Only

  • Hi,

    I’m currently running a medium sized Multisite install on an Ubuntu 12.04 x64 based server, using Nginx, PHP-FPM, MySQL and Cloudflare at the front, serving wp-login and wp-admin over HTTPS. Cloudflare isn’t caching any wp-admin/login page, rules are in place, neither is the backend Nginx cache I have in place, both are showing as BYPASS in the headers.

    It’s mainly for hosting educational blogs for schools, who unfortunately use IE most of the time.

    I’ve been alerted today that users can’t log in to the admin area if they’re using any variation of Internet Explorer, but all other browsers work without issue. Being a Mac user I rarely use Internet Explorer if I can help it, but when testing it in various scenarios I get exactly the same result: “ERROR: Cookies are blocked or not supported by your browser. You must enable cookies to use WordPress.” This is on a proxied connection in a school, a direct connect at home and tethered on my phone’s connection, so it’s not an issue with proxying.

    Looking in the developer tools on IE, the cookies are sent and received fine, exactly how they are in every other browser. The test cookie is generated etc, but on POST the page will just refresh with the same cookies, but then show the message about cookies being blocked as above.

    I have tried all the common fixes available on Google and these forums, including modifying wp-login.php to force a login, functions.php code to force creating a cookie with the cookie-domain and setting the cookie defines in my wp-config.php. None of these have worked, but I didn’t expect them to as it was already working in other browsers. I’ve yet to disable all the plugins that are network enabled because it is a live Multisite install, but I’ve tried quickly disabling some that could be the culprit, I’ll try the rest during the night when it’s quiet. Stranger still, I have some blogs hosted that use domain mapping and it will allow me to log in to those blogs in IE.

    Has anyone witnessed this before? I have had the message before on all browsers when there was an error with a plugin at one point in the past, but this has since been fixed.

    Cheers,
    Ed

Viewing 15 replies - 31 through 45 (of 55 total)
  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    wp-content/sunrise.php: define( 'COOKIE_DOMAIN', $_SERVER[ 'HTTP_HOST' ] );

    That’s supposed to be there… You’re mapping domains, right? And this is only happening on mapped domains?

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    That’s the standard sunrise.php. It’s only happening on unmapped domains, in Internet Explorer, works everywhere else. Mapped domains work fine in IE too.

    Ed –
    The test script that prints out COOKIE_DOMAIN… is the value the same for a mapped domain and unmapped domain? My guess is that the domains with problems (unmapped ones) probably have a different value that affect the login.

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    jkhongusc, the COOKIE_DOMAIN for ed.gs domains are now blank. Mapped domains use the domain as a the COOKIE_DOMAIN.

    Ed –
    I believe sunrise.php is run even if the domain is not mapped. Have you tried something like this, modify sunrise.php to add COOKIE_DOMAIN if it is not defined.

    For example, add this bit of code at the end of sunrise.php (this shouldnt affect your working sites):

    if ( !defined( 'COOKIE_DOMAIN' ) ) {
    define( 'COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'ed.gs' );
}

    Of course back up your original… this hack is only intended as a quick test.

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    Unfortunately sunrise.php doesn’t seem to work unless it’s on a mapped domain site, it didn’t affect either the test code to show the cookies or allow IE users to log in on non-mapped sites.

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    Thought I’d have another crack at fixing this, seeing as it’s still not ?? Does anyone have any ideas?

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Have you upgraded to 4.1 yet?

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    Yeah, no difference. I’m just testing at the moment on IE with both subdomain mode and non-subdomain mode and the subdomain mode seems to generate 2 of the same cookie. Checking if Chrome does the same thing now. Will post screenshots shortly.

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    Yeah, double cookies for IE and fine for Chrome. Chrome cookies are also secure but IE is not.

    IE: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5wsf9rvgaim0bg/Screenshot%202015-02-02%2018.54.19.png?dl=0

    Chrome: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgua3bo85g1oyat/Screenshot%202015-02-02%2018.56.22.png?dl=0

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    According to NinjaFirewall that I installed recently, I have logged in fine and it logged the POST. All IE says is “ERROR: Cookies are blocked or not supported by your browser. You must enable cookies to use WordPress.”

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    You can disregard the double cookies issue, using InPrivate Browsing doesn’t give the same result but it still fails with the error.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    “ERROR: Cookies are blocked or not supported by your browser. You must enable cookies to use WordPress.”

    The ONLY time I saw that was when the home and site URLs were out of sync. One had a www and one did not.

    Can you test on another computer with IE? I wonder if it’s just your install…

    Thread Starter Ed

    (@coopeh)

    I was made aware of it by three different parties trying to use IE unfortunately. I’ve tested at their institutions and can confirm that it’s all versions of IE from 8-11.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    *boggle*

    I hate this. It’s GOT to be something specific to your setup, since more people would scream if this was the case world wide.

    “institutions” is an interesting word… Are they all behind the same kind of firewall?

Viewing 15 replies - 31 through 45 (of 55 total)
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