Trouble with logging in for first time?

poisongirl · Post by **poisongirl** » February 24th, 2007, 6:07 pm

So I was using the FF forum as a guest with this username "poisongirl" and then decided to make it an actual account. It didn't tell me that "poisongirl" was not available as an option for username, so it set it and my picked out password (and secret question and answer), and then sent me my validation in the email. I got this, the link was not an active link, so I copy/pasted it into a new tab, then did the same for the validation code. It showed it as being validated. If I try to do it again, or get another code sent, it says "you are already validated" or something like that. Yet each time I try to log in with my username and password, it says that the username is wrong or that the combo of them is wrong. I have managed to gain access to my account to change settings and have even changed the password, but it still won't let me sign in under my account. I can change my profile options etc, everything is just fine other than the actual allowing of me logging in.

What gives?

Post by **Daifne** » February 24th, 2007, 6:52 pm

You cannot use your user name when you are not logged in. If you accessed your profile, you logged in at that time. You couldn't have accessed it otherwise. That means that your user name and password worked to log you in. Stay logged in when you post. Your user name will be automatically added. You do not have to type it in if your are logged in.

Since you were allowed to use "poisongirl" in this guest post, that is not the registered user name. Did you maybe mistype it? I can't find anything close in the members list.

poisongirl · Post by **poisongirl** » February 24th, 2007, 8:02 pm

That's the strange thing... I would be totally logged out and it would not let me log in, and I would wander around the website and try the change settings links which would work (like I was logged in as I had set it to remember me always), but then it would still show the "login" and "login for messages" links, no "logout/logoff" ones to be seen. When I try to get a new validation email sent to me, it says I am already validated. Yet when I ask for my password to be emailed to me, it tells me that "The e-mail address you supplied does not match the one listed for that username". Yet this is the same email address that I used to register, AND that it *DID* send to me the validation email which I used to validate it, which it acknowledges as being validated already ... but the first time didn't say that, it just did the normal "it is now validated" thing like it had not been validated before with another user, which you also said there is no other username like that or even close to it... ???

I have also closed my browser and opened it again, cleared my cache and taken away my cookies for all mozilla websites plus my saved forms info, made sure to let those deleted sites be allowed to set cookies in the future by deleting them from the Exceptions listing of the Cookies area, and made sure to not save any of the form info each time after to try and get it to actually use my username and password.

Maybe it will just be easier to set up another account? But I would hate to have the same thing happen again, or possibly to someone else, so I would like to solve it and correct it in any way that I can etc, but if there doesn't seem to be any other way, or it just takes up too much time, then it's probably not worth it really...

Post by **Daifne** » February 24th, 2007, 8:13 pm

As I said, poisongirl is not a registered user name here. Did you maybe register with Mozillazine main rather than the forums? Or maybe the Knowledge Base? They are separate accounts.

poisongirl · Post by **poisongirl** » February 24th, 2007, 8:18 pm

Do the forums have a different user account than the main MozillaZine user accounts maybe? Because that is the only thing I can think of that might be causing this... I created a MozillaZine account, but maybe I need to create a separate Forums account as well?

Oh, duh. Stupid me... When I resent my password to myself (many times over now actually), it gives me my Secret Question and I obviously have not been trying out my Secret Answer, just my actual Original Password. But it was already not letting me login to my account after validation, before I even tried to get my password emailed to me, which is why I totally forgot that the password might have gotten changed and could be the cause of it. Heh. Silly me. Oh well, that's not it I guess. So it wasn't me just being ditzy - that darn blond streak underneath by the nape of my neck, I hate when it comes out and embarrasses me like that... : )

Maybe it's a conspiracy and it just doesn't want me to have a user account. Meep. Heaven forbid if I have to try registering again with a different username this time... Hah.

Post by **Daifne** » February 24th, 2007, 8:23 pm

See my post above yours. Yes, the forums are a separate registration.

poisongirl · Post by **poisongirl** » February 24th, 2007, 8:34 pm

OK. Yeah, I think that's what I did, but oh my *&$5 (that actually wasn't a swear word but...), Now I can see why others have said that there needs to be more of a clear difference between the different account areas, as one might think that the Main MozillaZine account would then allow access to the other ones (especially with the links to them at the right side of the webpage. I actually couldn't tell what I *could* sign in and do under the main account as the Forums and KB both seem to have their own user accounts. I think this is a big problem of the website, as there is no clear line being drawn (no warning that the other areas have their own accounts and when switching from one to another, no new "Please login with your Forums Username" page comes up, or is even presented at all, so you don't know until you have gone through what I have or someone tells you first. This is a bad thing, as it scares off all the new users before they even have had a chance at getting to know the site at all.

Yeah, the site and it's sub-sites seem great, but I would definitely add in a recommendation to restyle the different user accounts and how to sign in to them (can you stay signed in to all at once, maybe a nice little area that keeps track of which "Areas" of the MozillaZine Site you are curently logged in to and what you username is for each...). Something like that would be much less confusing, that's for sure.

Ok. Time for me to go and create a few more user accounts then, for the Forums and the KB (just in case).