Sign in loop

Thanks, @jamesosborne. I’ll be waiting for your update then. I did try with a different account that also has access to our Analytics, but it didn’t go through as well and the same error occurred.

I saw you mentioned that “wp-admin path was modified at some stage” at the GitHub issue and you are correct because we use the plugin “WPS Hide Login” to change the login URL, but it will redirect to wp-admin as soon as login is completed. Other sites we set with similar configuration have this plugin installed as well and that wasn’t a problem for them. In fact, they are using Site Kit without any problem so far.

Thanks for the additional insights, I’ll that you’ve performed this additional check in order for our engineers to review.

In relation to the modified wp-admin path you are correct there there are typically no issues with this. Issues may however arrive when it comes to site migrations or URL changes only once already connected.

@bwstefano Many thanks for your patience on this. We’ve spent some time looking into this and we’re still uncertain on the cause in this case. If possible can you please attempt Site Kit setup once more from a browser incognito window. Before doing so please temporarily deactivate the WPS Hide Login plugin.

If you’re redirected back to the setup screen once more please share the URL in your address bar on that screen.

Hi James, I’ve just tried that, following your instructions, but it’s still not working. Here’s the URL you asked: https://sitekit.withgoogle.com/site-management/setup/?scope=openid%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fuserinfo.profile%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fuserinfo.email%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fanalytics.edit%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fsiteverification%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fwebmasters&code=sitekit-hQ56tXtYbEspYKQKnyZCxU&supports=credentials_retrieval%20short_verification_token%20user_input_flow%20file_verification&nonce=a0da5fd889&name=InfoAmazonia&url=https%3A%2F%2Finfoamazonia.org&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Finfoamazonia.org%2Fwp-admin%2Findex.php%3Foauth2callback%3D1&action_uri=https%3A%2F%2Finfoamazonia.org%2Fwp-admin%2Findex.php&return_uri=https%3A%2F%2Finfoamazonia.org%2Fwp-admin%2Fadmin.php%3Fpage%3Dgooglesitekit-splash&analytics_redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Finfoamazonia.org%2Fwp-admin%2Findex.php%3Fgatoscallback%3D1&user_roles=administrator&application_name=wordpress%2Fgoogle-site-kit%2F1.28.0&hl=pt_BR

Many thanks for your patience on this as we investigate this further. As you’re using a language plugin with a few additional language extensions it’s possible there may be URL modifications, including from your admin control panel. We’ve created a filter for such situations. Can you download this mini plugin and install and activate as a regular WordPress plugin, before then attempting setup once more?

Let me know if that allows you to proceed. Your site records look fine from the Site Kit service so we suspect there may be something within your environment impacting plugin setup.

Sorry, James. It still not working… I’ve tried with two different Google accounts and with Chrome and Firefox, but the problem remains. I also have activated the plugin “Site Kit URL Change compatibility” that Adam created before enabling Site Kit again, which is in version 1.28.0.

Sorry to hear that, and appreciate the the efforts. I’ve added the checks you’ve performed to the GitHub issue.

As we’re unsure of the cause if you’d like to share your error logs along with any XHR response during setup we can review them from our side. You can use the same form previously used to share privately.

Hi James,

At which page should I get XHR responses? Should it be at /wp-admin/admin.php?page=googlesitekit-splash?

If so, there are items named “setup-tag?_locale=user”, “admin-ajax.php”, “?tagverify=1&timestamp=1616462120140”, “health-checks?_locale=user”, “v0.js”, and “admin-ajax.php”. Any specific one you’d like? If you need several items, would exporting a HAR file be more handy? If not, I shall copy them to a txt file and send it through the form.

Hi @bwstefano. Any Site Kit related response on the same screen after being redirected would be great, the “setup-tag?_locale=user” in particular. And yes, if you in a position to share your HAR file we can take a look at this once more. You can use the same form previously used to share a txt document with the above information.

@bwstefano Many thanks for providing the additional information. I’ll check this with the team and report back to you here.

@bwstefano Just to let you know we have additional team members reviewing the contents of your HAR file. I’ll keep you updated here once we’ve made any progress on this, appreciate your patience supporting documentation.

@jamesosborne, we have just set a different website, geojournalism.org, in a hosting environment with the same characteristics of the website above (infoamazonia.org). For our surprise, the same issue happened so I’m now starting to suspect this could be related to our server’s settings. Is there any text where you detail exactly the components or elements of the server that Google Site Kit uses? Or perhaps how it connects externally, which domains it connects to..? Any technical details you can share would be helpful so I can send for our IT team to evaluate and help debug.

@bwstefano Many thanks for the update, very interesting. We have an engineer reviewing your HAR file and investigating this at present as per the related GitHub issue.

When you mention you setup a new website with the same characteristics did you use a staging site or have Site Kit setup on this site from another domain? I’m curious to know if setup failed at the exact same stage. For testing any changes to your site URL the Log HTTP Requests plugin can be used to check that the request was sent to the proxy from that site, although if you have any further insights on the failure point of this particular site I can add this to the GitHub issue.

In relation to your hosting requirements the plugin needs to be able to connect to https://sitekit.withgoogle.com, which it sounds like you were able to previously at some stage. You can use the below cURL command to check there are no issues at server level:
curl -I https://sitekit.withgoogle.com

If you have any additional Web Application Firewalls setup you can also temporarily deactivate.

If your current hosting plan has any WordPress ToolKit or other script installer available it would be great if you could spin up another new WordPress clean install and check whether you’re able to proceed with Site Kit setup from there. I suspect the issue may be in relation to traces on a site which was migrated.

@jamesosborne, this second website, in which I’m having this issue, was recently moved to the same hosting environment as the first one. Even though they are under different server images, these images were set by the same developers and use the same OS and software, like PHP and its extensions. They also share the same software and OS versions.

This website, which is at GeoJournalism.org, was previously on a different server, and I took the opportunity of this migration to install Site Kit on it and run some tests, given these issues we are facing at InfoAmazonia.org. That’s when I spot this problem there too. It’s a production site.

I used Log HTTP Requests and it indeed detected a call to https://sitekit.withgoogle.com/o/oauth2/site/ with status 200. We also ran the curl command and the response was nothing but the usual:

HTTP/2 200 
content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
vary: Accept-Encoding
x-cloud-trace-context: e9dee51645f061540817e16bb50c09ec
date: Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:10:36 GMT
server: Google Frontend
alt-svc: h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-T051=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q050=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q046=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q043=":443"; ma=2592000,quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="46,43"

We don’t use on that website Web Application Firewall except for Cloudflare, which I’ve temporarily disabled to try setting Site Kit one more time, but it didn’t go through as well.

To test, I have set Site Kit with a testing website I have at testejeo.000webhostapp.com. It’s in a completely different environment, with just a very basic set of plugins and themes, and I was able to set Site Kit to the end in it. This is to try to rule out any problems with my browser, computer, or Google account. I can then only tell the issue is either with those two installations of WordPress or with the server that’s hosting them.

I’m not sure how else I can help with debugging at this point. I could check if our developers would kindly be able to set one of these two sites in a different environment (like 000webhost) or, like you said, try to configure a clean WordPress website in the same server to check.

But perhaps your engineer goes faster than our capacity to go any of these directions and find something from the HAR file? Well, let me know what’s best.

@bwstefano Many thanks for the update and apologies for the late response. We’re still investigating this on our side and I’ll update the related GitHub issue with your findings so far.

If it’s possible to install a clean WordPress install with your current provider that may provide some insights should Site Kit work setup successfully. I also noticed some additional .htaccess rules on your site, which could potentially be impacting setup in your case.

I’ll also check for any progress from looking into your HAR files. Many thanks for your thorough updates so far.