--- /dev/null
+I can't seem to login to ikiwiki sites reliably anymore.
+
+I am not sure what is going on. It affects this wiki and the git-annex
+wiki. I am editing this through the anonymous git push interface.
+
+OpenID is failing on me. That is, sometimes it works, sometimes it
+doesn't. For example, while writing this, I clicked the "Preferences"
+link and I seemed to have been logged in automatically without
+problem, even though I previously *tried* to login and failed with an
+error similar to [[bugs/Error:_OpenID_failure:_time_bad_sig:]], which
+of course I cannot reproduce anymore on ikiwiki.info now:
+
+ Error: OpenID failure: time_bad_sig: Return_to signature is not
+ valid.
+
+I *can* still reproduce this on the git-annex wiki, however, which is
+odd. This *could* be because the OpenID host is screwing up, as I am
+not directly responsible for that box anymore... but then why would it
+work on one wiki and not the other?
+
+But worse, I cannot login with my regular non-OpenID user, which I
+started using more regularly now. When I type the wrong password, the
+login form gives me "Invalid entry" next to the password field. But
+then if I do a password recall and reset my password, I get a
+different error:
+
+ Error: login failed, perhaps you need to turn on cookies?
+
+That happens reliably on git-annex.branchable.com. ikiwiki.info seems
+to be more stable: i can eventually login. i can login to my personal
+wiki with OpenID fine. I can also login to branchable.com itself with
+openid without issues.
+
+So I guess the problem is mostly with git-annex.branchable.com? Not
+sure how to debug this further.
+
+Thanks. --[[anarcat]]
+
+Update: now I can't login to the ikiwiki.info site anymore, getting
+the same errors as on the git-annex site.
+
+Update2: it seems this is specific to the HTTP/HTTPS switch. If I use HTTPS, things work fine, but not with plain HTTP. So I'm moving this to the branchable wiki, as I am not having that problem on other ikiwiki sites. Maybe the bug specific to ikiwiki is the lack of clarity in figuring out wth is going on here... See <http://www.branchable.com/bugs/login_failures_without_https>
+
+> This seems to be a concacentation of multiple unrelated problems with
+> different stuff, which is not a good bug report technique. Then to add to
+> the fun, you filed the same bug on branchable too. Sigh!
+>
+> The `time_bad_sig` problem with the perl openid library is a problem I am
+> aware of but it's not clear if the problem is clock skew, or a protocol
+> problem. At least one user to report it seemed to get it due to a http
+> proxy. I'm pretty sure it could also happen if multiple openid logins
+> were attempted at the same time (the `consumer_secret` which is stored
+> server-side is used). The problem is not specific to ikiwiki.
+>
+> Ikiwiki says "login failed, perhaps you need to turn on cookies?" when
+> the user successfully logged in, but their cookie does not indicate why
+> they were logging in to begin with, so ikiwiki does not know what action
+> to continue to. One way to get this when cookies are enabled is to
+> re-post a login form after already using it, by eg using the back button
+> to go back to a previous login form and try to reuse it.
+>
+> --[[Joey]]
+
+>> I am sorry. I thought the problem was originally related to ikiwiki
+>> then figured it was *only* happening on branchable sites, so I figured
+>> it was better to report it on the branchable.com forums.
+>>
+>> I know that there's a OpenID-specific issue, but I had such issues in
+>> the past and succesfuly solved those. Because the timing of the emergence
+>> of the problem, i felt there was a correlation between the two issues.
+>>
+>> And indeed, there seems to be a HTTPS-related issue: both login mechanisms
+>> work fine when on HTTPS, and both fail on HTTP. So I don't see those things
+>> as being necessarily distinct. -- [[anarcat]]
+
+>>> I've explained how the "login failed, perhaps you need to turn on
+>>> cookies?" can happen and what it means. Clearly nothing to do with
+>>> http; clearly not specific to branchable.
+>>>
+>>> I just now logged into this site using openid over http, and it worked
+>>> ok. I think it's more likely that the `time_bad_sig` problem occurs
+>>> intermittently (which would make sense if it's a timing related issue),
+>>> and so you've just so happened to see it when logging in with
+>>> http and not https, than that there's actually a correlation.
+>>> --[[Joey]]