[tomkron]

I have been using Firefox (32-bit) on Windows7 without trouble. This morning, firefox told me I should upgrade (from 54.0) to 54.0.1 ASAP, so I did. Since then, I cannot log into BBO. Tried a fresh install of 54.0.1 64-bit as well, same issue. Symptom: I get to the home page, then click the login button. The screen turns white (as usual), then blue (as usual) but then hangs there and never presents either a progress dialog for loading or the login dialog.

Anyone else running into this?

[tomkron]

By the way, I have a different computer running firefox 52.2 and it is still working, so the problem seems to be the upgrade and not (say) the connection or something.

[tomkron]

I went out for a couple hours and when I came back the problem was resolved. I didn't change anything, so I don't know what the issue was nor what the cure was; but if someone else did something -- thanks!

[diana_eva]

tomkron, on 2017-July-02, 10:49, said:

I went out for a couple hours and when I came back the problem was resolved. I didn't change anything, so I don't know what the issue was nor what the cure was; but if someone else did something -- thanks!

We haven't changed anything but there was another BBOer describing similar symptoms with BBO login screen and FF yesterday. We couldn't replicate, for what is worth, but none of us tried to log in at the exact moment FF required update.

Sounds like a FF temporary weirdness, hope it will get fixed by itself for other affected users as well.

[tomkron]

The problem has come back. Same symptom. Still nothing changed on my part. This time I tried other browsers, namely Microsoft Explorer and Opera. Same symptom using them as well.

If I understand properly how BBO works, the hang is right at the time it turns on Flash, so I thought maybe Flash was the culprit and did an uninstall/reinstall of Flash. No change. I have the impression, maybe imaginary, that the white screen is up longer before changing to the blue screen. Maybe some kind of timeout or timing issue?

I doubt this is related, but speaking of time the problem came back a little after midnight local (I wanted to check results in the practice session for the national event). Yesterday when I had the problem it was early morning and it was afternoon when it cleared up, so I'll check whether it goes away again this afternoon.

[diana_eva]

BBO takes a bit longer to load right after clearing cache, that's why after uninstalling/reinstalling stuff you notice it hangs for longer on the login screen before the screen turns blue. Anyway if the problem persists in other browsers it could be just slow connection.

[tomkron]

It's not a connection issue. It is not time-related, either, that was just coincidence. I have discovered something of a reliable workaround, maybe it will offer a clue as to the underlying issue.

1. Open firefox.
2. Point browser to bridgebase.com.
3. Click to go to the login/register screen. Fill in the info.
4. The white screen appears, sometimes with a flashes of a BBO progress dialog.
5. It hangs on the blue screen without putting up the dialog.

That much reproduces reliably on my machine. At that point I can exit firefox and repeat, or I can just repeat from step 2, or I can refresh the screen of step 3 - it always hangs.

However,

A. Open firefox.
B. Point browser to bridgbase.com.
C. Click on the "hand records" link.
D. Log in on the page which appears. Incidentally, that login dialog does not use a secure connection and firefox is unhappy about it.
E. The hand record query page appears. There is a red BBO logo/link at the upper right of the screen; click on it.
F. The login/register screen appears (same screen as 3 above). Fill in the info.
G. The white screen of (4) then then the blue screen of (5) occur, but this time the login dialog appears without the hang.
H. I can now log in normally.

That much also reproduces reliably on my machine. At that point I can exit firefox and repeat 1-5 or A-H as I might choose.

[barmar]

What happens if you go directly to http://www.bridgebas...ient/client.php (put this in your bookmarks) instead of going through any of the other links?

[diana_eva]

One difference between typing bridgebase.com in the address bar and clicking the logo is that the logo goes to www.bridgebase.com

Try to log in by typing www.bridgebase.com instead of bridgebase.com does that work? (I am not a techie, just noting why one URL might behave differently compared to the other)

[tomkron]

The "www." may be the key factor.

If I start at www.bridgebase.com and use the login screen, or if I use a bookmark to www.bridgebase.com/client/client.php, then I am successful.

If I start at bridgebase.com and use the login screen, or if I use a bookmark to bridgebase.com/client/client.php, then it hangs on the blue screen instead of presenting the login dialog.

It seems strange to me that they behave differently, but the difference is consistent on my machine. Now I'm curious whether anyone else sees this difference.

[barmar]

t's not so unusual that there's a dependency on whether you use www.bridgebase.com or bridgebase.com, we've had problems related to this in the past. Sometimes there's internal code that refers to www.bridgebase.com, and browsers behave differently when a web page refers to a URL with the same hostname or a different hostname.

But we've tried to reproduce this particular problem here, and haven't been able to.

If you have add-ons in Firefox, try disabling them and see if it makes a difference.

[tomkron]

barmar, on 2017-July-05, 09:01, said:

If you have add-ons in Firefox, try disabling them and see if it makes a difference.

I have uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere, but disabling them makes no difference.

I also have all the private settings turned up, e.g. it doesn't remember any history.

[barmar]

tomkron, on 2017-July-06, 04:47, said:

I also have all the private settings turned up, e.g. it doesn't remember any history.

That might be an issue, although I'm not sure why it would depend on whether you use bridgebase.com or www.bridgebase.com. Can you disable it, or list bridgebase.com as an exception, and see if it helps?

[tomkron]

Putting firefox back to the original default privacy settings did not make any difference.

[barmar]

tomkron, on 2017-July-07, 03:49, said:

Putting firefox back to the original default privacy settings did not make any difference.

Sorry, I'm running out of ideas. Since we haven't been able to reproduce it at our end, I'm unable to figure out where the error is happening.