Attention WotC: Drop the must-sign-in thing until it works, please.

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I had problems. And it took quite a bit of frustration before I figured out how to fix it.

On a side note, I couldn't find any easy way to get customer service to help...

 

[catsclaw227]

I haven't had any problems logging in, especially once I noticed that I am supposed to log in with my EMAIL address and not my old wizard's board username.

...I just got database error pages when I tried to go over to the forums...

I imagine that these were totally unrelated issues. Forum software is generally separate from the website software, and it usually has it's own separate database.

 

[CharlesDM]

I want to chime in that I too have been unable to log in, for two days, so far. As a professional software developer, I try to avoid debugging other folks software in my spare time, so I haven't done more than attempt to log in.

As a past and potentially future customer, I'm not impressed. When log in procedures change, it's generally a good idea to inform the affected parties of the details of the change. An e-mail and/or web site splash page seem appropriate. Also, unit testing with end users on a production system rarely works out well. Development environments exist for a reason. Finally, when a production problem is identified by your customers, it should be corrected as quickly as possible. Two days for a problem of this severity is too long.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I was unable to log in, migrate, or create a new identity. It won't let me get past the "Date of Birth" page--it keeps returning me to it.

I have had other problems recently as well. I had hoped that they were fixed as I successfully migrated. No such luck.

 

[catsclaw227]

As a past and potentially future customer, I'm not impressed. When log in procedures change, it's generally a good idea to inform the affected parties of the details of the change. An e-mail and/or web site splash page seem appropriate. Also, unit testing with end users on a production system rarely works out well. Development environments exist for a reason.

Agreed. As a professial web application developer, I already subscribe to your newsletter, and praise it with my emails to the editor.

Finally, when a production problem is identified by your customers, it should be corrected as quickly as possible. Two days for a problem of this severity is too long.

This is especially true. WOTC, you need to deal with this ASAP. Any customer facing, perception damaging bugs need to take center stage, no matter how inconsequential they may appear to be in light of your current project requirements. A web application lends itself to quick fixes like this and don't necessarily require a build upload.

... Unless of course they have tied their authentication logic to the rest of their development on the site.... Authorization, Authentication and Registration business logic should be stored in an isolated and self contained code base.

 

[Oldtimer]

After thinking a bit about the "D&D Insider" we are seeing, I've come to the conclusion that the present web application has absolutely nothing to do with the one they want us to subscribe to later. It's just a quick mock-up hack onto the old web site.

Honestly, it's an ASP application. That technology was released in 1997 and replaced (by ASP.NET) in 2002. I can't believe that any company would try to develop an ASP application in 2007. That would just be a really, really bad idea.

So there is another application hiding in the shadows, which might be why they are slow to fix things on this hack. Bugs we find here have no impact on the upcoming D&D Insider web application.

Anyway, if you have trouble logging in, just add "&authentic=true" to the end of the URL. That seems to force the application to accept you as an authenticated user.