HTTP What?

yorkkev28 · Sep 13, 2006

Hi, hope u have time to read all this. Its from World of Warcraft but is a software tech issue and also a networking prob involving being unable to log into forums relating to the game. Yes i am on NTL but all this HTTP just baffles me. Can anyone make this any clearer.

Basically i can play the game no problems but when i try to log into forums it says i don't exist. Bizarre, very bizarre!!

This post is about the inability to log in to the forums. The symptoms, cause, technical details and a proposed workaround solution are described. If you are unable to log in to the forums and your symptoms match the description, try the suggested Solution. If you are not interested in the technical details, feel free to skip them.

The forum login/authentication system is not compatible with HTTP-only web proxies (those that proxy HTTP traffic but not HTTPS), preventing successful login. In particular, it is not compatible with transparent proxies utilised by many major ISPs. For example, many players who use the UK ISP called NTL have problems logging in to the forums or are completely unable to log in.

The issue arises when a users's HTTP traffic is passed through a proxy but his HTTPS traffic isn't, a common scenario with ISPs that use transparent proxies. However, transparent proxies are not the only possible cause, the issue can also arise with certain configurations of proxy settings in the user's web-browser. (More technical details below)

The solution (described in detail below) is to configure the user's browser to pass both HTTP and HTTPS traffic through the same proxy server.

Technical details

The symptom of the issue is this. You go to one of the forums, e.g. English General. You type in your username and password correctly in the login box at the top right, and try to log in. If this is the first time you are trying to log in, then a page with your characters is supposed to come up, but instead you just receive the page with no characters in the list. If you have successfully logged in before and therefore have selected a character, then instead you just simply get bounced back to the same forum. No error message comes up and you are apparently not logged in. Instead of showing your selected character in the top right corner, the same empty log in box is displayed. No matter how many times you try, you don't log in.

The cause of the issue is this. The forum login system uses a mixture of URLs, some of which use HTTP, some of which use HTTPS. The forum pages themselves use HTTP, but when you click Log In, you are first taken through an HTTPS URL (which performs the authentication) and then you are redirected back to the HTTP forum page. The problem happens because of this mixing of HTTP and HTTPS protocols.

If your web traffic is proxied such that your HTTP traffic goes through a proxy, but your HTTPS traffic doesn't, then the source IP address from which you are apparently making the connections to the URLs in question are different for the two protocols. When accessing an HTTP URL, your apparent source IP (that the forum server sees) is that of your proxy server, but when accessing an HTTPS URL, the source IP is that of your computer. The login system used by these forums seems to check for source IP address and therefore if the HTTP and HTTPS traffic comes from different addresses then you can't succesfully log in.

This problem can arise in several situations. Here are the two most common scenarios I have encountered:

ISPs that use so called "transparent" proxies. Example: NTL (2nd largest ISP in UK). Even if the user has no proxy server specified in their web-browser, nevertheless these ISPs forcefully pass web-traffic through their proxy servers. Unfortunately, this is usually done only to HTTP traffic and not to HTTPS. The result is that, unknown to the user, their HTTP traffic goes via the ISPs proxy servers, and therefore has a different source IP address than the user's IP address.

User's whose proxy settings in their browser is configured such as to pass HTTP traffic through a proxy server but not HTTPS traffic. This can even happen without the user's knowledge, for example when automatic proxy configuration settings are used. Many institutions that provide automatic proxy settings provide them such that only HTTP traffic is proxied. Example: several major UK Universities.

Solution

The solution in all cases involves manually setting up appropriate proxy server settings in your web-browser. I am going to describe in detail the necessary steps.

First, you need to determine whether your web-traffic is indeed currently going through a proxy server or not, and if so, what is its name. If it's not, then your problem with logging in is probably caused by something else and this post does not apply to you. To check this, visit this page:
What Is My IP Address? - Dedicated to IP address discussion
If you are going through a proxy server, you will see a repot like this:

Proxy Server Detected!
Proxy Server IP address: W.X.Y.Z
Proxy Server Details: name.of.proxy.server
Proxy Reports IP as: A.B.C.D

At this point, make a note of the name of the proxy server (indicated in bold in the example above), as you will need it. Next you have to configure your web-browser such that all traffic (both HTTP and HTTPS) goes through the same proxy server. The steps for this are different for each browser, the exact steps are explained here for Internet Explorer 6.

1) In Internet Explorer, go to Tools->Internet Options->Connections tab.
2) Click "LAN Settings" button on the middle right. A new dialog box should open.
3) Uncheck the "Automatically detect proxy settings" setting if it's checked.
4) Under Proxy Server, check the "Use a proxy server for your LAN" setting.
5) In the Address box, type in the name of the proxy server you found above (the bold part). In the Port box, type 8080.
6) Click the Advanced button. In the new dialog box, make sure the "Use the same proxy server for all protocols" setting is checked.
7) Hit OK sufficient number of times.

If the above doesn't work for you, you can also try with Port number 80 instead of 8080, which may work for some people. For other web browsers, you need to make the equivalent settings, i.e. specify a proxy server manually and make sure both HTTP and HTTPS traffic go through the same one.

Conclusion

This issue is a pain. I have made this post during the forum beta test as well, as many people were unable to log in to the beta forums. The solution suggested in this post allowed most people with this problem to successfully log in.

Unfortunately this is not 100% Blizzard's fault so we can't just blame Blizzard for it. It's due to the interaction between the forum software and the user's or their IPSs proxy configuration. This is not an uncommon problem actually, I have encountered many forums, web-sites and web services that suffer from the same problem. It arises any time the web server checks the source IP address for security purposes.
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What counts is not what you think you have done but what you have actually done.

Thanks in advance

Kev

Addis · Sep 13, 2006

HTTP is the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and is the "language" that web servers/browsers use to send HTML and other pages to each other.

HTTPS is HTTP but through a secure SSL connection, and this is used for online transactions etc where the communication needs to be secure.

A proxy server is a network server which acts on behalf of its clients to the internet. Your web connections are going through the proxy server, and the proxy server is then making the connection to the website on your behalf.

You seem to have a proxy server which is allowing HTTP connections (like normal web page connections) but not allowing HTTPS connections which are required for the forum to log you in (securely send your username and password). This proxy server is on behalf of NTL, so theres nothing you can do about it really.

I'm very surprised about this actually, as I didn't think a large ISP like NTL would have such problems with HTTPS connections.

I would contact NTL tech support and ask them about this issue and if they are considering a fix for it. Otherwise, if you still can't get the issue resolved switch to a better ISP like Blueyonder etc.

thoonie · Sep 13, 2006

Actually Addis NTL has been having this problem for quite a while now, anyway, yorkkev28 as Addis said, try to contact NTL regarding this problem, they should have a fixed for it, if not(cause not all customer reps are aware whats happening) ask them if they can give you details for an alternative proxy server.

Addis · Sep 13, 2006

thoonie said: ↑

Actually Addis NTL has been having this problem for quite a while now, anyway, yorkkev28 as Addis said, try to contact NTL regarding this problem, they should have a fixed for it, if not(cause not all customer reps are aware whats happening) ask them if they can give you details for an alternative proxy server.
Click to expand...

If I read correctly, the proxy server is on NTL's domain, and so using a different proxy through the web browser won't work.

thoonie · Sep 13, 2006

I mean alternate proxy server from NTL too.

yorkkev28 · Sep 13, 2006

I would contact NTL tech support and ask them about this issue and if they are considering a fix for it. Otherwise, if you still can't get the issue resolved switch to a better ISP like Blueyonder etc.
Click to expand...

Blueyonder has either or is in the process of merging with NTL. Changing ISP isn't an option cause its my landlords house and he lives on the ground floor. I will however contact NTL and see if they are aware of the problem/ know a solution.

Addis · Sep 14, 2006

I've not heard about any merger, and any news report i find is from 2003.

thoonie · Sep 14, 2006

I know someone personally who has the same problem like yours. He switched to BT But then again, im sure NTL can rectify that problem coz they know that https is really important nowadays.

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HTTP What?

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HTTP What?

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Addis The King

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