Sunday, January 25, 2015

Mr. Roboto Or How A Tester Becomes A Robot

Update: If you are using Sitecore 8.x you do not need the hot fix rather use this fix instead. Disable Robot Detection on a Content Management Server

Dennis Augustine and I were working with a client that all the sudden started to experience loss of login status.  We followed all the usual timeout checks, compared code, compared configurations, tried to find a solid way to reproduce.  We had two test users and everyone was sharing them. With all the testing happening, it turns out that Sitecore detected them as a robot. 

Finally Ken Gray discovered this gem: Sitecore Dialog Timeout Issue

Here are the instructions for deploying the Login Timeout Fix:
  1. Modify the Website\web.config by adding following module to the ‘system.webServer’ section (in case site is running on the Integrated Mode on IIS7

    <- default setting  ; and ‘httpModules’ section in case Classic mode is used) :
    <add type="Sitecore.Web.HttpModule,Sitecore.Kernel" name="SitecoreHttpModuleExtensions" />
    <add type="Sitecore.Support.FixHttpSessionTimeout.CausedByRobotDetection,Sitecore.Support.414299" name="RevertingAnalyticsBotSessionDuration" />
  2. Add the Sitecore.Support.414299 into the Website\bin folder.
If you have any tip, tricks or resources to share with the Guild please email them to chris.williams@readwatchcreate.com