Users Not Able To Connect

I have a simple debug tool ready - if any of you who is having this problem can follow the below procedure, we can get to the bottom of this matter:

  • Download the utility plugin below, upload and activate it from your plugin admin:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p7neudbr6al8p3x/check_patreon_login_details_for_user.zip?dl=1

  • As admin via Users menu in WP admin, go to the user profile of a user who is experiencing this problem. View the profile in edit or view mode.

  • Check the section titled “Patreon login info (debug)”.

  • Copy/paste all the info that is to the right of ‘Patreon login token status’ line in that section to this topic.These two numbers determine only the expiry time of the user’s login so they are safe to share.

This will allow us to see whether the tokens that allow the user to login via Patreon are expired. Users whose tokens have expired cannot login.

Here it is for one such user:

1600438921
2678400
Valid

Well. That was a bit unexpected.

Are you able to unlock your content with a test account as of this moment?

and

Do you know if this patron is a custom pledge patron or a patron who pledged to an exact tier?

@Tiffany_J How many of your patrons are unable to unlock your content?

As far as I can tell, all of them.

I signed up a brand new test Patron account and had the same issue.

Can you use the below guide for forcing a refresh of your site connection to Patreon?

I already have API v2…

They pledged an exact tier. Test account is still fine. I’ve only has a handful of users with this issue, the vast majority has not had a problem yet (or they haven’t brought it to my attention).

@blindwave Ok, at this point it can be suspected that the particular users’ device/os/browser + isp setups may have a situation.

It may be that their device or browser is caching it, in other cases isp caching (or proxies) can also be suspected.

Trying to have these users clear their browser cache may help. It can also address cookie issues.

@Tiffany_J The guide also works for forcing refresh of your connection. So just give it a try.

I’ve had them clear cookies, use different browsers, devices, etc. It was working for them until this past weekend.

I’m seeing 100’s of these errors a day so I expect more people are having the problem and have not contacted me yet.

When you mention errors, are you talking about the logs in the error log or this particular situation with a user not being able to unlock occurring?

The logs I posted above from the health check. There are hundreds of those in a day. The users themselves get no errors, it happens like in the video I showed you above.

I’ve had users try PC and mobile, as well as multiple browsers.

I downloaded the utility debug tool plugin, here is the results for a patron with the access problem today.

1600452999
2678400
Valid

This is for a patron that I deleted the user on WordPress today and he tried to access a locked post again without success. This patron pledged to an exact tier as an annual subscriber and every locked post including the one he tried to view today on my site are set to “Any Patron”

20 patrons contacted me in one day (Thursday) about problems accessing a locked post. The problem appears to be frequent on cell phone and tablets but also is happening on computers.

I had to unlock the post as was obvious this was impacting more patrons. This has been happening for over 3 weeks now, I was contacted a handful of times per week until this last week, when I have been swamped with patrons unable to access content. I expect that most patrons are having a problem and haven’t contacted me yet.

Over a month ago this never happened. Obviously Patreon made some change that is causing this.

I am now afraid to publish a new locked post, as I will be bombarded by patrons that can’t access the post. This is a SERIOUS PROBLEM and is unacceptable and needs to be fixed ASAP. I was using the free Patreon plugin but switched to Patron Plugin Pro hoping it would fix the problem, but it does not.

When I let patrons know about the problem I was told by some patrons they are having problems on several other sites using Patreon. Also, there are 3 in this thread with the problem.

If this is not fixed soon, I will be be forced to unlock over 100 posts and move my locked content directly to Patreon and get rid of the Patreon plugin that does not work.

Note as a new user this forum limited how many times I could post in a day.

1 Like

1600457204
2678400
Valid

The forced refresh did not work.

I also tried the forced refresh, does not work.

Hello?? Please help!!

Yes, where is the help and support? Tried here, sent help ticket to Codebard and many tickets to Patreon.

@blindwave Occurrences of such api connection situations in connection logs is not an indicator of a problem by themselves - they can be caused by any issue - temporary connectivity problem in between your server and Patreon, temporary load at the api, at your server etc. They are generally automatic attempts to keep tokens fresh. The more users your website has the more such listings should appear.

In your case the patrons experiencing this problem being low compared to the amount of users you have sounds more like a situation with those particular patrons. It would be hard to debug this situation without doing work at your site with the help of those affected patrons.