Inaccessable U2U page

Dear Mods,

If this is the wrong place to post such questions please feel free to redirect. For some reason, I've been unable to access my U2U page for the last month or so. I always get redirected to "http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/index.php" eventhough I am logged in. I've already tried re-logging, deleting all ATS cookies, and what not. Even tried it in IE without luck.

Kind regard, M.

Which browser are you using? You seem to imply it is not Internet Explorer, saying "Even tried it in IE without luck".

Join the club.

There's a few of us that have been reporting the same issue for about a month now, and no one seems to want to answer the question. (see the ATS issues thread, page 199)

I wish I could tell you to expect a prompt reply, but the rest of us seem to be getting ignored.

reply to post by vox2442


Why don't you send a U2U to SO directly about the matter??.....



Seriously, would you like me to contact an ATS MOD or SuperMod for you?? (my U2U seems to work fine...)

Peace

[edit on 27/1/2010 by operation mindcrime]

If no one seems to answer, I can only give one piece of the puzzle, since I am not the administrator here nor coded the site.

Check if your browser is blocking and/or stripping the "Referer" during the http requests.

The site is coded in such a way as to absolutely require the "Referer" string for whatever reason upon trying to access the U2U system.

The reason for this only the administrators can answer though.

I can confirm this. I once blocked the "Referer" to visit another website. Forgot about this detail and only after 2 weeks realized it was the missing 'Referer" line in the http request that caused the issue.

reply to post by Manawydan


Oh i forgot, what happens when you hit the alert button below one of the posts in this thread?

Peace

[edit on 27/1/2010 by operation mindcrime]

Check if your browser is blocking and/or stripping the "Referer" during the http requests.

Yes, that's it. I said that it was a 'Firefox specific issue' in the ATS Issues thread, but when I did a fresh install of Firefox, obviously without any add-ons, the issue disappeared completely.

In Firefox's 'about:config' page, 'network.http.sendRefererHeader' should be set to '2'.

You can only access the Member Center via ATS. That's why trying to access the Member Center from a link in your favourites/bookmarks menu never works.

Thank you all for your kind replies. As you have correctly guessed I normally use Firefox. Being a developer there is no beating firebug and temper data for easy site debugging. On a more technical note I can say that it is not the referer. At least it doesn't seem to be. Here are the request headers for GET memcenter.php?display=u2u

Host=www.abovetopsecret.com
User-Agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7
Accept=text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language=en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding=gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset=ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive=300
Connection=keep-alive
Referer=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/index.php
Cookie=wrappercap=7; xmblva=1264633343; snip

Strange thing is the response header status is 302 - Found

This has been a problem ever since I've returned from a vacation a couple of weeks before. *shrug

Kind regards, M.

Well, if it's not the referer, only the administrators who coded ATS can solve it... the only possible thing I know of is the referer.

I hope it doesn't go ignored for much longer, issues thread is now at page 204, since it was reported in 199 it is taking a while... administrators could be examining the code.

[edit on 27-1-2010 by jjjtir]

With firefox you simply put, " about:config " in the address bar and go to page; click, "i'll be careful" then scroll down to, "network.http.sendRefererHeader" if the number to the right is anything other than 2, right click and choose modify, and make the number a 2 . Close page then try again.

Edit to add: there's no http or www in the about:config address.

[edit on 27-1-2010 by noconsequence]

I just realized I am having the same problem with my u2u inbox, started a thread on it and the thread was removed immediately. I'm not doing anything differently than I was before, so if anybody has a solution could you please post it on this thread?

edit:
I disabled my firewall and got there fine, but I'm not a big fan of browing any site without that functioning. I would be keenly interested in knowing what's changed here since the last time I was on though.

[edit on 29-1-2010 by twitchy]

Originally posted by twitchy
I just realized I am having the same problem with my u2u inbox, started a thread on it and the thread was removed immediately. I'm not doing anything differently than I was before, so if anybody has a solution could you please post it on this thread?

Your thread was moved to the staff forum so we could try and address your issue Obviously sending a U2U to let you know, isnt working

*GEL*

[edit on January 29th 2010 by greeneyedleo]

I too have had the same problem for a few weeks on one of my machines.
So far I've found that if I disable my firewall (temporarily) I can access my U2U page. I haven't found a chance to narrow the problem down more than that but it seems to have something to do with a change at ATS since it began recently.

I found the problem.

Your firewall and browser must be set to allow third party cookies from abovetopsecret.com.