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    The cookies appear to be getting dropped as if the user is hitting a cookie size limit. They are set on one request and then simply not there on the next.

    @ Arun


    "Set on one request" means they were received and then returned?   Long ago we had problems that Cookies were not being received on the initial request (especially if the user was entering via a backdoor).  So then stale ones were being returned with the next request and causing problem symptoms.   The diagnostic of that would be that with Cookies sorted by Date Accessed some would be showing a too old Date Modified (beside a current Date Accessed).   Is there any similar diagnostic you can suggest for what your symptom description implies?  E.g. perhaps still keep Cookies up and sorted by Date Accessed then (somehow) notice if Size is changing?   Note that in the case of Vista and W7 Cookies can now come from two locations so whatever diagnostic you come up with should include that factor too.  

    Fortunately Windows Explorer does allow us to do such a search but it is not obvious at first that it is possible.   E.g. we can not use the Cookies special view of the TIF Viewer which is really too bad since a security fix has caused all Cookie names to be obfuscated (groan)... 

    Try this for a start:

    1. press Win-E
    2. open shell:Cookies
    3. Ctrl-e ext:=.txt
    4. Sort descending by Date Accessed (Click on column header or Alt-V,o,...)

    Note that this procedure assumes  Folder Options, Search:  Include subfolders... is checked.

    So that would at least help keep track of what was changing and where.   In order to figure out what was changing we would have to note the path and do finds in the appropriate index.dat...

    Hang on.   It looks like the TIF Viewer is going to be useful for a Cookies diagnostic after all.  (Who knew?  Still useless as a TIF Viewer in general though.)  And right-click Properties shows the "Cache Name" so we can even indirectly figure out which Cookies directory each one comes from.
    Note that right-click Properties of either file item can show the size more accurately than the Size column of either view.

    So change in procedure: keep both views up and synchronized but the only need for the previous Search Results will be if the location of the Cookie is significant.   Instructions for using the TIF Viewer:

    1. Open TIF Viewer (e.g. from IE Alt-T,O,Alt-S,V)
    2. View by Details  (Alt-V,D)
    3. Sort by Date Accessed Descending  (Alt-V,o,Last Accessed  Alt-V,o,D)
    4. Update as needed by pressing F5
    5. Use right-click Properties to check Size for each change.

    Perhaps a PowerShell script would be less work for the user?   <eg>

     

    HTH

    Robert
    ---

    Saturday, December 3, 2011 1:26 AM
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  • Question
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    In passing, for some reason when posting via the Bridge line breaks and/or carriage returns sometimes get removed. My previous post included two line breaks between the end of #3 and the sentence starting with "Arun".

    Peter Thornton

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:16 AM
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  • Question
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    In passing, for some reason when posting via the Bridge line breaks and/or carriage returns sometimes get removed


    Sounds like you are trying to post in Plain Text.   Are you trying to use a converter too?   I gave up doing that a long time ago...

    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/comsandbox/thread/57a0ab79-c3bb-49a5-9b01-4b57995164b4

    Try using Rich Text (HTML) only and no converter.   Then the bridge should just do pass-through--less quirks at least.

     

    Good luck

    Robert
    ---

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 6:15 PM
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  • Question
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    Hi Robert - good to know at least you are still looking at all this :-)

    Yes I do post in plain text and use the converter, but need to to make the code tags work. I tested again here -

    http://social.Msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/msdnsandbox/thread/42030cde-14ed-4967-8813-a8793e9cb8d3#42030cde-14ed-4967-8813-a8793e9cb8d3

    It looks like hitting enter 3x to give a two blank lines (which is what I did in my OP in this thread) results in only a line break but no blank lines.

    I guess this isn't the right place to be discussing Bridge issues, but if it wasn't for the Bridge I couldn't post and because of "can't sign in" it means can't "edit" typos and failed line breaks etc. Of course most users affected with the "can't sign in issue" are unlikely to be aware of the Bridge and hence unable to report they can't use the forums.

    Peter Thornton

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 9:21 PM
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  • Question
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    Yes I do post in plain text and use the converter, but need to to make the code tags work.


    Thanks for the laugh (QED <w>).   But you don't need to use Code tags.  Richard Mueller has a workaround for that...

    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/5f5fdd51-0bb5-4976-ac3c-6d9bcdfa9a5b#3bec9972-d320-4685-8c49-e586e1a89cc6


    Good luck

    Robert
    ---

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:27 PM
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  • Question
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    Hi Robert - good to know at least you are still looking at all this :-)

    Yes I do post in plain text


    I have been posting using the bridge occasionally to try to cause the symptom that you and Kathleen have reported but I haven't tried using plain text mode.   Hmm...   <eg>

    Have you been trying the  InPrivate Browsing  mode workaround each time you get the message?   E.g. press Ctrl-Shift-P and try again.  Remember, I did get the message once (in extraordinary circumstances) but that allowed me to continue.   A similar symptom logging into Connect was also circumvented that way.

     

    Robert
    ---

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:42 PM
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  • Question
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    Thanks for the link, I'll certainly look into that, though a shame to have to do extra processing work just to get simple stuff to send as expected.

    I notice Richard's comment "I recently discovered a drawback. The reply will no longer be counted as a reply with code". I also notice that, even with "code tags" code does not appear get counted. With other peoples code posts I notice a little code-icon in the header. But not with mine, even though the code seems to get correctly coloured, eg

    http://social.Msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/isvvba/thread/edf5b7aa-c4f4-4051-8c09-bd7e6420b627#51ad27b7-168e-4e0a-a4e6-326430a733d8

    Not sure how large numbers of uncounted code posts impacts on points, oh well...

    Peter Thornton

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:53 PM
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  • Question
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    I'm sure the can't sign in problem is not related to the Bridge, it affects others who don't use the Bridge or ever had it installed.

    Using InPrivate or clearing cookies EACH time may work, but only for a limited number of activities (eg post, navigate to a new page), then need to do that again.

    Peter Thornton

    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 11:43 PM
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  • Question
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    I'm sure the can't sign in problem is not related to the Bridge, it affects others who don't use the Bridge or ever had it installed.

    Agreed but I'm trying to find a repro procedure for something that doesn't happen to me at all.

     

    Using InPrivate or clearing cookies EACH time may work, but only for a limited number of activities (eg post, navigate to a new page), then need to do that again.


    That's new information then.   I thought the problem was just one of an initial sign-on.   Do you have any software which would be interfering with Cookies?

     

    HTH

    Robert
    ---

    Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:37 AM
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  • Question
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    Agreed but I'm trying to find a repro procedure for something that doesn't happen to me at all.

    I can't even reproduce the issue on an unaffected machine with an affected one sitting along side!

    FWIW Arun advised he could consitently reproduce the problem if any of these sites are in different zone* (Forum site and Live Id site): http://*.microsoft.com or https://*.microsoft.com or https://login.live.com, then the second scenatio I described would occur (go round in circles).

    * where "zone" refers to Trusted sites. However that doesn't apply to me as I don't have any sites in any trusted zones

    That's new information then. I thought the problem was just one of an initial sign-on. Do you have any software which would be interfering with Cookies?

    I and others have mentioned cookies and InPrivate browsing several times in this forum and elsewhere, indeed I think it was you who suggested to try InPrivate!

    Presumably there must be something in common with those of us affected, possibly some software but I can't imagine what though.

    Peter Thornton

    Wednesday, November 30, 2011 4:18 PM
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  • Question
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    >>>FWIW Arun advised he could consitently reproduce the problem if any of these sites are in different zone* (Forum site and Live Id site): http://*.microsoft.com or https://*.microsoft.com or https://login.live.com, then the second scenario I described would occur (go round in circles).

    [Arun] That’s correct, Peter. That’s the root cause for the second issue.

     

    For the third issue, I got the Fiddler trace from Kathleen.  Engineering team analyzed the trace. The cookies appear to be getting dropped as if the user is hitting a cookie size limit. They are set on one request and then simply not there on the next. It does not appear to be a protected or trusted site related issue and the users number and size of cookies are within the acceptable limits permitted in IE8. It really looks like some malware or some software corrupting the authentication cookie.

     

    Presumably there must be something in common with those of us affected, possibly some software but I can't imagine what though.

    [Arun] – Yes

    Forums Program Manager
    Friday, December 2, 2011 11:17 PM
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  • Question
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    The cookies appear to be getting dropped as if the user is hitting a cookie size limit. They are set on one request and then simply not there on the next.

    @ Arun


    "Set on one request" means they were received and then returned?   Long ago we had problems that Cookies were not being received on the initial request (especially if the user was entering via a backdoor).  So then stale ones were being returned with the next request and causing problem symptoms.   The diagnostic of that would be that with Cookies sorted by Date Accessed some would be showing a too old Date Modified (beside a current Date Accessed).   Is there any similar diagnostic you can suggest for what your symptom description implies?  E.g. perhaps still keep Cookies up and sorted by Date Accessed then (somehow) notice if Size is changing?   Note that in the case of Vista and W7 Cookies can now come from two locations so whatever diagnostic you come up with should include that factor too.  

    Fortunately Windows Explorer does allow us to do such a search but it is not obvious at first that it is possible.   E.g. we can not use the Cookies special view of the TIF Viewer which is really too bad since a security fix has caused all Cookie names to be obfuscated (groan)... 

    Try this for a start:

    1. press Win-E
    2. open shell:Cookies
    3. Ctrl-e ext:=.txt
    4. Sort descending by Date Accessed (Click on column header or Alt-V,o,...)

    Note that this procedure assumes  Folder Options, Search:  Include subfolders... is checked.

    So that would at least help keep track of what was changing and where.   In order to figure out what was changing we would have to note the path and do finds in the appropriate index.dat...

    Hang on.   It looks like the TIF Viewer is going to be useful for a Cookies diagnostic after all.  (Who knew?  Still useless as a TIF Viewer in general though.)  And right-click Properties shows the "Cache Name" so we can even indirectly figure out which Cookies directory each one comes from.
    Note that right-click Properties of either file item can show the size more accurately than the Size column of either view.

    So change in procedure: keep both views up and synchronized but the only need for the previous Search Results will be if the location of the Cookie is significant.   Instructions for using the TIF Viewer:

    1. Open TIF Viewer (e.g. from IE Alt-T,O,Alt-S,V)
    2. View by Details  (Alt-V,D)
    3. Sort by Date Accessed Descending  (Alt-V,o,Last Accessed  Alt-V,o,D)
    4. Update as needed by pressing F5
    5. Use right-click Properties to check Size for each change.

    Perhaps a PowerShell script would be less work for the user?   <eg>

     

    HTH

    Robert
    ---

    Saturday, December 3, 2011 1:26 AM
    |
  • Question
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    FWIW Arun advised he could consitently reproduce the problem if any of these sites are in different zone* (Forum site and Live Id site): http://*.microsoft.com or https://*.microsoft.com or https://login.live.com, then the second scenario I described would occur (go round in circles).

    [Arun] That’s correct, Peter. That’s the root cause for the second issue.

    As I mentioned, I don't have any "zones" at all yet alone sites in different zones, so it doesn't explain why it affects me. However IIRC a long time ago I did have *.microsoft.com in a trusted zone which for some reason was required to make Bing work correctly. Could there be anything still lurking after removing it from the trusted zone.

    Is this series of issues preventing sign-in still being looked into with a view to resolving?

    Peter Thornton

    Saturday, December 3, 2011 11:09 AM
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