Resolved: Why can't I login to the Community?

[zapleahy]

Update 9/7/16: 

The issue that was preventing some users from logging into the Community been resolved.

Thank you all for your patience, and for your willingness to try different approaches to logging in until you made it here!

We've learned from the experience and will be better equipped to handle any similar issues in the future. We've also taken the opportunity to make a few additional optimizations to speed up page load times, and reduce unnecessary backend redirects. Continuous improvement is what it's all about.

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We are currently investigating an issue that is making it difficult for some visitors to log into the Community. 

You'll know this is happening to you if you are logged into your Fitbit.com account, click through to reply to a Community discussion and end up caught in a loop where the Community page simply refreshes instead of logging you in like you might expect.

If you're caught in this loop, not all is lost. Most visitors can successfully log in by waiting a minute and performing a hard refresh on the page. You may have to refresh the page multiple times to trigger the log in page.

We are actively investigating this issue, and hope to reach resolution soon. Apologies for the inconvenience. If you are able to successfully log in but have encountered this issue, let us know of your successes below. 

[WendyB]

Thanks for letting us know!

[bbarrera]

@zapleahy I'm seeing this as well.

There is another issue for the last 7 or 8 days. While navigating from another site over to community.fitbit.com the page redirects repeatedly and then fails to load. Sometimes a ?nobounce is appended to the URL, other times it simply fails to load due to the number of redirects like this (just happened):

Both problems (login and redirect) have occured on Safari/iOS and Chrome/Safari on OS X.

[SteveH]

@bbarrera these 2 problems are linked. As a result of a temporary fix to the "too many redirects" issue, this new issue has arisen. @zapleahy is addressing both. I think it will be useful to know that you are still getting the "too many redirects".

[bbarrera]

Thought they might be related...

[zapleahy]

@bbarrera appreciate the detailed report. The issue seems to be more prevalent with Chrome and Safari, and we've failed to reproduce on Firefox, I.E., or Opera yet. I see you were persistent enough to beat the redirect loop, but if it does become bothersome, recommend trying a different browser. I'm not convinced it is browser-specific, but you might have more consistent luck.

@WendyB yes, of course! Hope to nail this down.

[rushmere]

@AllisonFitbit I've been getting the same problem as bbarrera with a "too many redirects" error.

I'm also using Safari (the latest version), and I get it after clicking on one of the links in the email notification received when someone replies to a post. There are multiple links in the email; one of them produces the redirect error and one of them doesn't.

I'll post more specific details if I get the error again - I've deleted all of my notification emails, so I'm unable to try it until I receive another one.

[PaddyLandau]

I had this problem when trying to access the community from the Fitbit app, but not when accessing it directly using a Google search.

The Fitbit app itself is failing to synchronise my Fitbit, sometimes with the message, "Couldn't connect for live data," and bizarrely sometimes without any message.

So, I think that this might also be affecting people's Fitbit apps.

I'm using Android.

[rushmere]

OK, so my last reply isn't quite correct!

I've just tested it after receving a new notification email. Both links in the email are the same URL.

With Safari, it always fails the first time I click either link with this error:

The second (and subsequent times) I click it, it works OK.

If I close Safari and re-open it, the first click fails again.

[DJC_63]

I get the "too many redirects" message when I try to enter by clicking an email link or by clicking Community/Discussions from the Dashboard.  If I go to the Help section first then click Discussions I can get in.  I use Safari.

[bubbyzain28]

I have had problem TODAY!!!! but I waited 0-5 secs and worked!!!!!!!! solution is on me!!!!!!

[bbarrera]

@zapleahy Never have a problem with this page:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Help-Forums/ct-p/product

The "too many redirects" only happens when going directly to a thread (e.g. clicking link in email), or going directly to a product forum for example the Blaze forum (https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Blaze/bd-p/blaze).

[Bodybygym]

I received a too many redirects notification...

[Aspirant]

Thanks!

Took me two tries, but the page then resolved. 

[bbarrera]

@zapleahy on my Macbook Pro I'm able to access Fitbit dashboard and community site using Safari. Ditto with iPhone.

However on Mac mini at the office, I'm only able to access Fitbit dashboard. The community site refuses to load. I've logged out, cleared browser cache, restarted, reloaded, etc, etc and nothing works.

[bbarrera]

Fixed in Safari on work computer:

- enable Develop menu (Safari > Preferences > Advanced > "Show Develop menu in menu bar"

- Develop > Empty Caches

Hope that helps someone.

[zapleahy]

Our site team made great progress today and we're a half dozen steps closer to understanding this issue. Not ready to place any bets on timing yet, but doubling down on the effort to get a fix out ASAP.

@DJC_63 @bubbyzain28 @Bodybygym @Aspirant Appreciate your reports and persistence refreshing the page, clicking the links a second time, or reloading the browser. 

@rushmere Thanks for the details! I was just going to suggest that it's probably the first link you click (regardless of the link itself) that results in the error, and the second one does not. We can see that although the user experience is failure, the system is actually logging you in correctly--so that the second time you click, it recognizes you're logged in. Force refreshing Safari may clear your cache and cookies, causing the problem to begin anew.

@bbarrera Sounds like a bad cookie stored in there. Glad you were able to regain access through the Mac Mini by clearing cache and cookies. After a hard refresh of the browser, this would be the next best action to take.

[Bodybygym]

Awesome Allison!

[bbarrera]

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@AllisonFitbit wrote:

@bbarrera Sounds like a bad cookie stored in there. Glad you were able to regain access through the Mac Mini by clearing cache and cookies. After a hard refresh of the browser, this would be the next best action to take. 

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@zapleahy Not so sure about a bad cookie, on multiple occasions I had cleared cookies, history, and restarted browser. I was about to give up, then decided to go looking for how to empty cache. Upon doing that my login took effect on community.fitbit.com.

"Hard refresh of browser" link you provided doesn't work on latest version of Safari. Thats what gave me the idea of hunting down the cache clear option.

[zapleahy]

@bbarrera Good thinking. Look forward to sharing more about the root cause of this once it becomes apparent. Failure patterns have been tricky to track down, so it's possible that it's simply persistence that yields success. Does clearing cache on Safari resolve this every time? Of course, I hope you're in the clear now, but if you have a chance to try again, would be good to know the results.