"Authenticate filter not called" (but able to login from other computer?)

Hi:

That error message comes from my wp_login_failed() function. That gets fired when someone uses a bad user name or password. The computer you’re logging in from should not impact this situation.

The reason that error comes up is WordPress’ authenticate filter was not called for some reason. Chances are that’s happening because some plugin or theme you have overrides the wp_authenticate() function but that overriding function does not call the authenticate filter.

Please SSH into your site, cd into the base directory of your WordPress installation, then issue the following command:


grep -r 'function wp_authenticate(' wp-includes/ wp-content/


Please paste the results of that output here.

Thanks,

–Dan

I’m running the site on a WIMP server, as I mentioned above, so I don’t normally SSH into anything. I logged into my server and opened command prompt to run the command on the root directory for the WordPress Multisite Installation, but all I got was

‘grep’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I just got the same error message again, now on the laptop that let me log in before, after I saw a message saying my login had timed out. I never got the chance to go back to the login page – when I try to type in anything that would normally take me there, I see the error message.

The login page still appears fine when I go to a fresh computer and try to log in using the same user account, so that’s why I was assuming it was tied to the computer – an IP address, a browser caching issue, something.

I’m a librarian at a graduate school. I have a lot of laptops available to me. But I’d prefer not to burn through another computer every time I forget to log out, I’d prefer to fix this once and for all. Because if this happens to any of the users I support, I’m going to get blamed for it and have to remove your plugin, which I’d really rather not do since other than this issue it solves my problems very helpfully.

My sympathies for running on a Windows server. ?? Joking aside, the following should act similarly: find 'function wp_authenticate(' wp-includes wp-content

I don’t have a windows box handy to test on, so you may need to tweak that a little.

Oh, on the computers that you’re having problems on, here are some questions:

* Does it happen only when you go to the login page, type in your user name and password then click “Log In?”
* Or is it that it happens just by viewing the login page?
* Does it happen when you access pages other than the login page?
* If either of those last two questions are true, what happens if you go into your web browser’s settings and delete the cookies for the site in question?

Thanks,

–Dan

That command doesn’t work either and I’m not familiar enough with command line or debugging/troubleshooting this sort of thing to know what you’re asking me to do and tweak it. Here’s what I get:

FIND: Parameter format not correct

I never get to the login page at all, as I’ve tried to describe. Sorry that wasn’t clear already. I can get to the front-end, but I can’t get to the back-end because I can’t get to the website at all. No admin pages because I’ve been logged out, no login page because I get the error.

I was able to clear all my cookies in Safari and get in, so that does seem promising. I’ll play with other browsers when I’m done posting something that’s due like 2 days ago now. (For any difference it makes in troubleshooting this, at the moment I’m on a Mac, remoting into a Windows server, yeah, this is a silly setup).

Hi:

I am trying to get you to search through your code base to find all declarations of the wp_authenticate function. One ways is to read up on the web about how the find command works. Another is to download the site’s files to your local mac and then use grep there.

–Dan

FWIW I also ran into this issue on a very bare-bones WPMU site with no wp_authenticate overrides as described above. Clearing my site cookies fixed the issue for the time being but doesn’t explain the root cause.

Ah, here’s what I found by doing a search for wp_authenticate across the contents of my wp-content folder:

4 occurrences in 3 of 2886 files:
The bits in italics are added by me

1. plugins/jetpack/class.jetpack-xmlrpc-server.php line 106: comment line
2. plugins/jetpack/class.jetpack-xmlrpc-server.php line 111: part of login() function
3. plugins/jetpack/jetpack.php line 1471: part of upload_handler() function
4. plugins/login-security-solution/login-security-solution.php line 427: comment line

I used Komodo edit to search though the contents of the files in my wp-content directory. Is that good enough, or do I still need to do something on the command line?

Hi E:

Thanks for the info! I installed jetpack. Doesn’t seem to be the problem. I added some extra log calls to possibly help sort out what’s going on. Can you please do the following:

* Download the main plugin file from GitHub (https://raw.github.com/convissor/login-security-solution/master/login-security-solution.php)
* Open login-security-solution.php in your favorite text editor
* Go to the log() function and change /var/log/ to a path where your web server has the ability to write files.
* Remove the comments in front of the log() calls (by doing a search and replace of ### with nothing).
* Upload the file to my plugin’s directory in your plugins directory
* Use your site until it you replicate the behavior
* Send the output of file to me at [email protected]

Thanks.

The log calls mentioned in my earlier post are now in the latest releases, so you just upgrade and then uncomment the log lines.

Hi there!

Just FYI, I am also experiencing this issue on various multisite installs, including one with 80 sites and 75 active users managing their own site. So far I have not heard of any of them experiencing the issue but I have. Here’s a few observations and tests I have made.

1- The issue seems to be relatively recent but I couldn’t say when it started.

2- My main computer is running Windows and the problem seems to happen only with Chrome for me. I do not believe I have seen it on Firefox or Opera so far and I use all 3 browsers regularly. I never use IE other than for testing front end layouts so could not say if the issue appears there.

3- Deleting the specific site’s cookies in my browser always fixes the issue for me too. I tested changing the salts variables in wp-config (in case it would work on a larger network where it’s not possible to ask non-techie users to delete cookies) and that did not work. The error remained.

4- All my sites run on Linux/cPanel hosts, some run Apache, others run LiteSpeed. I’ve seen the issue on both so this is not limited to Windows servers or a specific Web server tech. Some run PHP 5.3.x, others run PHP 5.4.x

5- No PHP error log file is created at the root of the site or the cPanel error log.

I searched for the string you mention within the files of the site I had the issue with this morning and the only instance was in the MemberPress plugin. That’s the only site I use that plugin on so it does not explain other instances of the error. JetPack is not installed on this network.

I will uncomment the log calls you mention on my largest network and see if anything shows up.

Hope this helps a little!

Mate, I’ve got massive problems.

I’m getting the exact same error message:
Login Security Solution: authenticate filter not called

And the exact same problem; I can’t even see a login box. Whenever I attempt to go to the usual wp-admin page, it gives me that error.

My major problem is that no amount of cache-cleaning is working! I can’t get in. Well, I can’t even see the login page to attempt to get in.

I would de-activate the plugin … BUT I CAN’T GET IN.

Please help asap.

Glen

Hi Glen:

As mentioned in some earlier threads, clear your cookies.

I’m trying to sort out the source of the problem: Do you use multiple browsers when accessing your site?

Thanks,

–Dan

Hi Dan,
As mentioned, I tried that. It didn’t work.

I solved the problem though. I FTP’d into the server, jibberised the plugin folder name so that WordPress shut it down, then was able to log back in and deactivate and remove the plugin.

Obviously not the solution you would be chasing, but appreciate your speedy reply nonetheless. So thanks.

Cheers
Glen

Hi Gforeman:

You mentioned having tried “cache-cleaning.” So I assumed you were talking about clearing the browser’s cache. Cookies are separate from the cache, so that’s why I suggested deleting your cookies. Did you actually delete your cookies too, or did you just clear the cache?

Anyway, please don’t be distracted by that comment. Please answer the question in my prior post:

I’m trying to sort out the source of the problem: Do you use multiple browsers when accessing your site?

Thanks!