issues with SSO – can not log in to woocommerce.com

  • Resolved Gaetano Giunta

    (@therealgggeek)


    4 months, 2 weeks ago

    I have been trying to log in to woocommerce.com for the best part of an afternoon, but this does not work at all. Without being logged in, there seems to be very little venue for asking for support about logging in (catch 22 situation)…

    The situation is: a) we have an account on woocommerce.com – we used it to buy 2 paid-for woocommerce extensions; b) we self-host the website which uses those extensions; c) we do have jetpack installed on that site; d) we have dev/staging/prod environments for that site; e) we install and upgrade WP plugins using Composer instead of the admin GUI.

    The need is: being able to log in into the woocommerce.com website in order to download the latest version of the two extensions which we are paying for.

    The symptoms are:

    • when I go to woocommerce.com, and I click on “login”, the browser has some kind of remember-me cookie, as the site knows which woo/wp account I’d like to use, and shows it. I click on that account name, and I am then redirected to a wordpress.com page listing domains (why ???). There are no wordpress.com domains registered for that account, and the page listing them seems to be trying to load them forever (maybe it’s just coded badly and it does not cater for the case of a user with no domains, or only self-hosted domains…)
    • from the wordpress.com page (not) listing domains, I can click on the bottom-left icon to go to my profile/account/settings pages. All of those pages load slowly, seem to be getting most data by ajax wrong or not getting it at all. They also show editable fields which I can click in, but then I can not modify the data! Today I tried to upload an account avatar jpg file, and the upload was ok, but I could not save the change
    • from there I also tried to create a new, free website, thinking that this might possibly help the wordpress.com website deal with our account. Alas, after picking a domain name, I got an error: “an active access token must be used create a new Site for the User”
    • there is no visible button anywhere for me to log-out from all the crap that this SSO system is, and make the browser trigger generation of an “active access token”. Nor a login link to woocommerce.com which does not take me back to wordpress.com

    Could someone have a look at the state of our woocommerce.com/wordpress.com account and fix any missing/wrong data with it, so that logging in to woocommerce.com starts working reliably?

    The account is @circularrevolutionlondon

    Bonus points for: 1. being able to add a 2nd email which could be used to log in to the same account (ie. have a “team” account with multiple logins) and 2. not requiring to click on a link in an email whenever trying to log in to woocommerce.com from a browser which was not already logged in

    Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
    • Plugin Support omarfpg a11n

      (@omarfpg)

      Hi @therealgggeek,

      Have you tried clearing your browser’s cache and cookies already, or trying on an incognito navigation, or with another browser, or maybe another device or network altogether? Learn more: https://wordpress.com/support/browser-issues/

      Please clear the cache and cookies for WooCommerce.com, and WordPress.com (the login is through this one as you know already!).

      I also checked your account @circularrevolutionlondon but didn’t find anything unusual with it, which further makes me believe it’s a problem with your browser.

      Learn more: https://woocommerce.com/document/log-into-woocommerce-com-with-wordpress-com/

      Bonus points for: 1. being able to add a 2nd email which could be used to log in to the same account (ie. have a “team” account with multiple logins)?

      I see you already have a collaborator account already added! That should do the trick as those can also see your downloads, subscriptions, tickets, and even connect stores to WooCommerce.com! ??Does this work for you?

      Cheers!
      -OP

      Thread Starter Gaetano Giunta

      (@therealgggeek)

      @omarfpg I did manage to log in using the collaborator account, thanks.

      The system still looks a bit janky though, and most likely not just because of the browser cache (I did clear it earlier today):

      • when I first tried to log in using the collaborator email, it said there was no such wordpress.com user
      • but when I tried to sign up, it did find the user, and asked me to change the password
      • it sent me both an email to activate my account, and one to reset my password
      • once in, it does not list the two extensions we paid for under “my subscriptions”, as it does for the main account (or at least it did before, we have it written down in our instructions), but it does list them / allows to download them under “my orders”

      Since we are discussing this issue: is there a way for me to download a previous version of a paying extension?

      Thread Starter Gaetano Giunta

      (@therealgggeek)

      Also, is there a way to connect the prod version of our website to the woocommerce account / website, while still managing plugin updates via composer, and while also periodically copying the production wordpress DB to the Staging environment?

      Plugin Support Shameem R. a11n

      (@shameemreza)

      Hi @therealgggeek

      when I first tried to log in using the collaborator email, it said there was no such wordpress.com user but when I tried to sign up, it did find the user, and asked me to change the password

      It could be due to a browser issue. I recommend clearing your browser’s cache and cookies, or trying a different browser or device entirely. You can find more information on how to do this here: https://wordpress.com/support/browser-issues/#clearing-your-browser-cache

      once in, it does not list the two extensions we paid for under “my subscriptions”, as it does for the main account (or at least it did before, we have it written down in our instructions), but it does list them / allows to download them under “my orders”

      This is expected behaviour as collaborators can view and manage downloads, subscriptions and tickets on your behalf. However, they cannot purchase anything, set products to auto-renew, cancel renewals, access order information, or your private account information, including store credit card details on your behalf. More information can be found here: https://woocommerce.com/document/adding-collaborators/

      is there a way for me to download a previous version of a paying extension?

      Unfortunately, WooCommerce does not provide previous versions of plugins. We always recommend using the latest version of our products for the best performance and security. However, if in case you need an older version, please contact us at Woo.com > My Account > Support.

      is there a way to connect the prod version of our website to the woocommerce account / website, while still managing plugin updates via composer, and while also periodically copying the production wordpress DB to the Staging environment?

      By default, you can only connect and update on a single site, whether live or staging. However, you can use the plugin on live and staging sites. A simple workaround: Activate and connect the extension to your staging site, make your updates, and then reconnect to your live site. More info:

      I hope this clarifies your concern. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

      Thread Starter Gaetano Giunta

      (@therealgggeek)

      Thanks for the info @shameemreza

      About connecting the website to woocommerce: so far I have not done that both because a) it seemed to be difficult when we have the extensions set up on multiple environments, and often copy the database between them, and b) there seemed to be little point in having the website connected to woocommerce, since we do manage upgrades of wp, woocommerce and all plugins using composer, and prevent upgrades from happening automatically or via the admin interface.

      Are there other benefits to having the website connected to woocommerce, aside from being able to see the latest extensions version and subscription expiration date? And is there any risk of the extensions getting auto-upgraded?

      Based on the described set up of the site, with regard to how plugin updates are managed and production/staging environments, sounds like having a site connected to WooCommerce.com has little to offer in your particular case, @therealgggeek .

      I hope this helps!

      Thread Starter Gaetano Giunta

      (@therealgggeek)

      ok, thanks

    Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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