What Is Wrong With This Site?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

It took me about 6 rounds of street-scene-spotting the other day, and five or six again just now, to log in. I’ve met similar antics on many other days, though usually fewer rounds.

Security is unfortunately necessary but this wretched picture game is going too far. It happens randomly and haphazardly, the photographs are of low and decreasing quality so not always easy to examine.

Sometimes too, the Forums are Far-ums: you need leave and re-enter the site for the message window to open.

It is getting worse, for no good reason. I do use a few other fora, and none have such a cack-handed log-in process. That for the TurboCAD Users’ Forum for example, takes just your name, pass-word, intended duration (1 hour, 1 day, all the time) and a quick automatic test. My health-centre site, which one would expect to be secure, needs only your details and a password. This site though……

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Not had any problem using either Chrome, Edge or Firefox and on different computers. Have you got a bit of malware in there somewhere trying to suck up credentials for nefarious reasons?

Martin C

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Nigel Graham 2, I know what you mean, those stupid squares are enough to confuse anyone as to which ones you need to highlight, or not, let alone a robot trying to get them right. I’ve often tried just doing just the main square, and the other squares the image partly goes into, and they both get rejected. Whoever came up with that idea needs to collect their cards when they next leave off. Sometimes they just go on and on without realising you are not a robot, and I just give up for the day.

Regards Nick.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Like Martin, I don’t get the squares come up and I rarely even have to log in with just the tick be that on my PC or phone. And I never log out.

With the amount of computer issues you seem to have Nigel, I wonder if it is the site that has the problem.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

You might find this of interest, Nigel

https://paymattic.com/how-google-recaptcha-works-in-data-protection/

MichaelG.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Sounds more like a settings or software issue at your end, Nigel – as others, I can’t remember the last time I was ‘challenged’ at the doors of this forum, usually I’m signed in on PC and ‘phone, and I never log-out – occasionally, my phone will ‘drop me out’ but it’s become increasingly rare.

My settings are to accept and retain cookies for this site – dependent on your settings and browser, you may instead need to exempt them from deletion on closing.

 

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Seems OK for me on Apple Mac Safari (Sequoia 15.16.1)

Bob

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Log in went uncharacteristically smoothly for me just now.

I have to agree with Nigel that log in is usually awful.

Clicking the first time in the email address box nearly always takes me to Facebook (I don’t have a Facebook account) for some reason. I come back, fill in email and password, and nearly always I’m unable to put a tick in the small box in order to proceed to forum access.

Trying to proceed without putting a tick in the box just results in a failed log in and the whole process of entering email and password has to start again.

I don’t always get the Captcha screens but definitely do sometimes and they’re usually dreadfully fuzzy images. Worse than this is the number of times they can reappear and the fact that their logic is flawed:if you’re asked to tick all boxes with a traffic light, for example, the Captcha rule seems to except any pictures with only a peripheral part of the traffic light showing in the picture, so you’re left performing a guessing game as to whether it counts that small bit of the lampshade as a traffic light or not.

It’s the only forum I log into nowadays, but yes, log in is worse than any other forum I’ve used.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Again so much of it is down to the individual’s settings.

I do not have to enter my email or password as I have set the device to remember them. Even on the odd occasion where there may have been an update on the site and I need login I only need to type “J” and my email and password are filled in.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Well that was annoying; I typed a reply, and before I submitted it, the screen refreshed and I lost the lot, but remained logged in.

I rarely have to re-log in to the site, which is mainly accessed via Opera on a Windows PC.
On those few occasions, it’s normally after I have accessed the site via a different browser or PC.
I rarely log on via a mobile.

My browser is set to allow cookies, and not to delete them on exit, and login set to Remember Me; password also retained by Google, so re-login is painless anyway.
Opera’s Adblocker set to “Allow Acceptable Ads”, but trackers are blocked.

I hardly ever get the picture boxes.

Bill

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Bill, if you scroll the log in page up to high, the email box clashes with the Facebook and Tweeter symbols, which are actually invisible, but you can spot them if you have filled in the box, and then scroll the page up. I’ve had that a few times in the past, and so I don’t scroll the page up until the box comes into view, put my email into it, and then scroll up enough to put my password in the second box.

I don’t always get the picture boxes, but when I do, it’s more often than not that they are a pain in the unmentionable.

Regards Nick.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Perhaps I ought have added that I use WIN-11 and Norton anit-virus, and normally enter this site from my BT Internet account although also having Firefox installed.

Might there be some clash there?

Also, as Nick says, the “Captcha” tile game is not every time, but happens randomly, and its number of repeats is random. For this session for example, it did not appear at all.

It ticks a square you pick as obviously part of the target image, but I found yesterday it ticks every square you pick, even if blank as I deliberately tried.

 

I have noticed the Facebook and Twitter trademarks too, but as faint negatives (white on background) over part of the starting screen. I’ve not really noticed which part, and they soon go. Odd!

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I’ve had a flurry of Captcha challenges recently.  I believe the site issues them randomly as a way of disrupting bots.

Maybe Nigel and I are suspicious in some techie behind the scenes way, or are just unlucky.  Things in common – we both use btinternet and Firefox.   I never tick the remember me button, which means I present as a new login every time.

The forum is a bit buggy…

Dave

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

This forum does remember me, at least I don’t need type my name and password every time, but still worries I might not be real…

 

To compare them, I have just set a new tab, and used that to open the TurboCAD Forum, from my index.

A little ring of dots twirls round for a few moments under a message saying it is verifying I am human, on a very uncluttered page bearing the “Cloudflair” server company trade-mark; then an instruction tells me to complete the action below. Merely clicking a box to make a tick appear.

Then having reassured me I am human (I usually am…), it open the Contents page, headed by the normal Log In and Sign Up buttons.

I don’t recall it ever wanted to test my knowledge of out-of-focus street scenes.

 

…..

Incidentally TurboCAD’s “Log In” process has a third question: Intended duration of session, of 1 hour, 1 day or always. I don’t think it stops you reading the site when time’s up, but turns off your posting access. I assume this reduces expensive server time or load by not keeping it open longer than needed? I don’t know how that Forum is paid for.

 

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

Perhaps I ought have added that I use WIN-11 and Norton anit-virus, and normally enter this site from my BT Internet account although also having Firefox installed.

Might there be some clash there?

Also, as Nick says, the “Captcha” tile game is not every time, but happens randomly, and its number of repeats is random. For this session for example, it did not appear at all.

It ticks a square you pick as obviously part of the target image, but I found yesterday it ticks every square you pick, even if blank as I deliberately tried.

 

I have noticed the Facebook and Twitter trademarks too, but as faint negatives (white on background) over part of the starting screen. I’ve not really noticed which part, and they soon go. Odd!

Could it be Norton clearing out cookies from your cache, so this site then does not recognise you as a previous visitor?

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi Bill, if you scroll the log in page up to high, the email box clashes with the Facebook and Tweeter symbols, which are actually invisible, but you can spot them if you have filled in the box, and then scroll the page up. I’ve had that a few times in the past, and so I don’t scroll the page up until the box comes into view, put my email into it, and then scroll up enough to put my password in the second box.

I don’t always get the picture boxes, but when I do, it’s more often than not that they are a pain in the unmentionable.

Regards Nick.

Thanks for the tip, Nick. That helps somewhat, but I’ve just had to log in twice because the small black box you have to tick wouldn’t accept a tick the first time round.

Two sets of reCaptcha boxes also appeared at the second log in, and, just as on previous occasions, after being asked to tick all boxes with a bicycle in them and ticking boxes that unmistakably did have a portion of a bicycle in them I was still not allowed to log in until I had completed a further reCaptcha window.

Seems I was relatively lucky not to have to complete 6 windows like Nigel had to.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I don’t have any problem on either Android phone or PC. Most of the time it just stays logged in, on the odd occasion I have to log in I just use the saved details, no silly fuzzy pictures. I do agree that they can be very frustrating, if you have anything but good vision I imagine they are next to impossible

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

No problems here on a bog standard macbook

[Author]

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