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[WPMU DEV Dashboard] WPMUDEV Dashboard Grant Support Access intermittent

Hi there WPMUDEV

I had an online chat with Sanowar yesterday about something Branda related which lead to a discussion about an issue that’s been with Seductful.xxx from the start of moving to WPMUDEV hosting/plugins.
Not serious at the moment as we’ve found a way around it by simply creating WPadmin login credentials for WPMUDEV that I then supply to the WPMUDEV first level support as needed to gain access.

Sanowar inquired as to the staging environment and I informed him that I was currently developing in production/live as the site hasn’t been launched yet so he could do whatever testing he wanted on staging regarding. I supplied him with the login credentials for WPMUDEV (they are the same for staging and live/production) as he mentioned the default first WordPress problem resolution method (that I know so well by now) of disable all the plugins and enable them one at a time and test for plugin conflicts, but I told him he was welcome to do it as it’s not a big issue at the moment and I have other things that carry more weight on the priority list, then this morning I thought to myself that the longer I wait to sort this issue out, the more complex the eventual resolution process becomes and hence I’m rather now creating this ticket.

The issue started rather intermittent but I haven’t been tracking it all that well as when first level support normally asks me to grant support access via the WPMUDEV plugin, I of late rather just supply them the WPMUDEV login credentials I created.
I know that at sometime we had just the WPMUDEV plugins active on Seductful.xxx as we were sorting out/testing another issue but I can’t recall how support gained access then so I can’t definitively say if it’s a plugin conflict and if it might be between WPMUDEV plugins themselves, but I’m sure WPMUDEV has more technical knowledge/methods to maybe pin point the problem than what I do and hence I decided to create this ticket sooner rather than later and leave it up to WPMUDEV.

As I mentioned, not a major issue from my side at the moment as I can work around it but it might be a Dev problem that could be affecting more than just Seductful.xxx and in that case I’m sure WPMUDEV would like to resolve it in terms of the greater product reliability.

Thu, 7 Nov 2019 10:14:44
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  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi Seductful

    I hope you’re well today!

    I actually just experience that myself, trying to check the site: I was taken to the login page instead of being automatically logged in and allowed inside by the “support access” feature.

    This does, however, happen sometimes on various setups and isn’t really related to anything very specific. The way support access works is that we got a “special link” to your site that makes WPMU DEV Dashboard plugin on your site verify our credentials (on our end, whether we are allowed and authorized as WPMU DEV staff) on our end and if it can confirm them, it sets WP login cookies (time valid, support login has short expiration time) letting us access dashboard.

    Now, what might happen “on the way” can be (though very rarely) issue with that “verification” but that usually means that we just need to try again. More often it’s related to “something” on the site. Usually those are either some security tools (plugin on site or some feature on server) or some very non-standard WP settings/customization or some plugins related to changing user roles or privileges on site, access control plugins or similar.

    I suppose that in case of your site it might be related to either the WP Bouncer plugin or one of the membership related plugins (or combination of those) but that’s just “an educated guess” rather than ultimate diagnosis. Testing that would involved… yes, you right – conflict testing. So with all the plugins disabled except for WPMU DEV Dashboard we would need to extensively test (multiple attempts from various locations/devices) if we can access the site via support access all the times or not.

    If we could – then a standard way of troubleshooting: enable most “suspected” plugin back first, test again, enabled another one, test again and so on. But if with all of them disabled the support access behaves the same and sometimes works but sometimes not then this would point to the server.

    That being said, I realize I didn’t really solve or clear up the issue much. I’m aware of that but, unfortunately, that’s in fact a classic example of a “test or it’ll be guessing” kind of issue. The way support access works is in fact quite simple but that exact same reason makes the issue quite “unspecific” :slight_smile:

    So, we can try troubleshooting it. That means disabling plugins again though and it might actually take time. If you want to go for it (and I’m allowed to disable plugins and spend some time testing), just let me know please.

    Best regards,
    Adam

  • André
    • André Bothma

    Hi there WPMUDEV (Adam)

    I read through your reply and I understand it all. We (myself and WPMUDEV support) ran into a situation today where Defender had been deactivated and we checked the logs to find that it was done by WPMUDEV login credentials (the wp-admin user I created to circumvent the Grant Support issue in WPMUDEV plugin) and I didn’t know by who of the WPMUDEV support staff and why and what they were trying to do and and and, which made it difficult to know if I could reactivate it or not.

    So as I mentioned, it’s not a big issue my side and probably for that reason we ran into todays problem of not knowing why Defender was deactivated and by who. So it would be good to get the Grant Support working as then we know who might be doing what rather than just having WPMUDEV doing something in the log files.

    I unfortunately don’t have access to the WPMUDEV support system so I can’t help with the testing from my side. Does the issue replicate on the staging environment as you then have uninterrupted access to do whatever you need to with the plugins to resolve the issue as I’m currently developing on the live/production environment?

    Please let me know otherwise we need to schedule convenient time to you to have uninterrupted access to the production/live environment.

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Seductful

    I suppose testing on staging could actually help though it seems that at the moment support access is disabled entirely there. Could you enable it then and confirm here, please?

    I would do some testing for the start (note: the fact that the site is on our hosting doesn’t automatically give me full access to the wp-admin area!) and we’d then see what to do next.

    Please not though: unlike on live site (where I didn’t make any changes whatsoever) I might need to switch plugins on/off on staging site so I hope you’re fine with that.

    Best regards,
    Adam

  • André
    • André Bothma

    Hi there WPMUDEV (Adam)

    As a matter of fact Support Access was active on the Staging site (due to expire in 2 days, so it was activated 3 days ago I think) but I revoked and re-granted it so hopefully you can get in there via the WPMUDEV system. I have left you the WPMUDEV login credentials (Super Admin) I created for WPMUDEV (because of this issue) in the support message section so you can use them should you get blocked by the system again.

    The staging environment isn’t currently synced with the live environment as I’m developing on live so whatever need to be done once we know what the problem is would need to be done manually on live once you’re done. As for the staging environment, you have full control to do whatever you need, so you don’t need to check any permissions with me before doing it. ENJOY!!!

    Should you still not be able to get in, please advise how I send you the login credentials again (I knew but have forgotten) as I don’t want to paste them in here as they are the same for live and staging.

  • André
    • André Bothma

    Hi there WPMUDEV (Adam)

    Seeing WPMUDEV is centered around superheros, let me join in and inform you that I think the SUPERHERO to this issue has unknowingly maybe solved this for us.

    I can’t test it as I don’t have access as a WPMUDEV Support Agent like you guys do, but please refer the ticket on my account titled “Unable to edit post/page” and confer with Tho as what he found and did to resolve that ticket may be the answer to this ticket seeing when I revoked the Support Access and re-grant it in the past, it worked, hence I added “intermittent” to this tickets title not understanding why it was happening.

    But as I say, I can’t gain access as a WPMUDEV Support Agent so I can’t test it.

    I sure HOPE this has now also been resolved for us and if so, thanks Tho for all your work on this ticket, but let’s no forget to THANK Adam as well!!! :wink:

    You guys (and gals) at WPMUDEV are AWESOME!!! I’ve read through a few other tickets on the Hub and I really can’t understand how and why people are complaining about the level of support and feedback they are getting, things sometimes just take a while to resolve people, be patient…

  • André
    • André Bothma

    Hi there WPMUDEV (Adam)

    I just glanced through the actual code Tho (and the Devs) added and noticed “if( is_super_admin() )” in the filtering for the rule.

    I don’t know how the WPMUDEV plugin is configured and at what level it grants the support access to the WPMUDEV Support Agents, so I don’t know if it will resolve this ticket, but if not, hopefully it’s steering us in a resolving direction as to me it all makes sense now (kinda).

    Just note that the changes Tho made are in production/live and staging hasn’t been synced for quite some time as I’ve left it for you to “play” in, but the login credentials for the WPMUDEV login I created are the same on both platforms if you need to get into the WP-admin (which has been masked by Defender).

  • André
    • André Bothma

    Hi there WPMUDEV (Adam)

    Rather quite from your side regarding this ticket but just to inform that it seems Bouncer was the problem as I haven’t had trouble from Support Agents not being able to access the site from the Support granted by the WPMUDEV Dashboard Plugin today. :wink:

    So it seems this ticket is sorted, unless you’re still busy with or want to do more testing from your side.

    THANKS Adam!!!

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hi Seductful

    Thanks for the response and all the information and I’m sorry for late response.

    It’s been a bit more busy around than usual and also due to more than one post in a row from you, the ticket got marked as “newer” and we’re supposed to response from oldest to newest (to minimize waiting time). Hence the delay. I apologize for it.

    As for the issue – yes, the Bouncer plugin might have been an issue here, I think I’ve also mentioned it previously :slight_smile: As far as I remember, it’s supposed to allow only one single device at the time to login to the site for a given user but since WPMU DEV Dashboard uses sort of a “trick” for support access, that’s very likely related.

    Since it’s seems to be working now, I agree we can consider it solved. But since we don’t have to physically close this ticket, lets keep it “hanging” here for now, just in case, so if the issue occurs again we could get back to it.

    If you notice that any of my colleagues again have troubles accessing the site via support access even though it’s fully enabled, let me know here and we’ll get back to the issue.

    Best regards,
    Adam

  • André
    • André Bothma

    HI there WPMUDEV (Adam)

    I understand the delayed reply, I was the problem myself by posting updates hence the ticket kept getting marked as “newer” by the system. LOL

    As for the ticket, I think it’s safe to close as I’ve had several Support Agents (your “colleagues”:wink: successfully gain access through the WPMUDEV Dashboard plugin’s Grant Support function in close succession since I last heard from you regarding. So I think it’s safe to assume that Bouncer was causing the problem and that Tho’s MU Plugin code he supplied has done the trick.
    Seeing I have quite a few open tickets on the system I see as I’m used to DreamHost and Themify’s support systems where only the staff can close tickets, I forgot and it’s time for me to do some serious housekeeping.

    THANKS for all your assistance in resolving this issue!!! :wink: