Cannot Login to Frontend with Explorer on Magento Store

I recently had a problem with users of Explorer and login problems on the frontend of a Magento store. They were able to login using Firefox, but when using Explorer they couldn’t login as a customer. The backend was fine.

I found that I had some configuration issues, primary with server system time and cookies which seemed to be causing this. The fix I found on the Magento forums:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/8788/

I still scratch my head as to why Firfox users are able to login to the frontend while Explorer users cannot login to the frontend of my Magento installation, but until I can figure that out this fix above seems to work. Increasing the cookie expiration time from the default 8600 to a hardier number seems to do the trick.

Post written by Ed Reckers

Founder and lead web development consultant at Red Bridge Internet : San Francisco WordPress Developers and Consultants.

6 Responses to “Cannot Login to Frontend with Explorer on Magento Store”

  1. Joro

    Same problem, but nothing helps 🙁

    I’m running 1.3.2.4

    I have set locale to the same as the server.
    I have set cookie timeout to 86400
    I am running on a server with a domain name (NOT localhost)

    I have NO problem logging into the Admin backend.
    But when I try to log into the front end nothing happens… just redirect to the login screen. Some clients reported to me the same problem. When I edit their account et re-save them, they can successfully login to the store. The next day the accounts expires again…

    It’s strange the same “expired” accounts has no problem to login using the form on checkout !?!

    I have made sure the browser settings are right, still no luck.
    It behaves same on IE 8, 7, 6 or Firefox, Safari.

    A few weeks ago it was working fine, and I don’t know what changed!?!?!

    It is driving me insane. Any ideas on how to fix it?

  2. cactork

    @Joro
    Try http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/18342/
    See post #26..

    I was having the same problem as you (running 1.4.0.1) and that fixed it..

    Hope that helps,
    Regards

  3. phpkid

    I am using Magento 1.3.2.3..I am not able to login using front end in any case…i changed cookie to 10000 and tried everything but no luch until now???any help will be appreciated?

  4. david

    solved …

    i had frontend cookies for http://www.domain.com and domain.com

    do this to resolve …

    Check the Cookie settings under System -> Configuration -> Web

    Session Cookie Management
    Cookie Lifetime = 3600
    Cookie Path = (blank)
    Cookie Domain = .yourdomain.com [this is (dot)yourdomain.com]
    Use HTTP Only = Yes

  5. Gersh

    Very useful i had a subdomain where this was happening on Chrome i removed the subdomain from the cookie domain setting and now it all works.
    Thanks!

  6. Shaun E

    I know this is very very old but I just thought I would mention that our site runs Magento CE 1.7 and we STILL have this same problem. It affects Windows IE and Chrome users as well as Mac Safari and Chrome users. It does not affect Firefox users for some reason. We have our cookie lifetime set at 2 hours (7200) and we noticed that customers who had new computers would often call in because they were in eastern timezone but the Windows setup defaults to Pacific timezone and they didn’t pay attention during the computer setup and left it at Pacific.
    Wish there was a better solution to setting the cookie lifetime to some really big number.

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