Manual i-Reserve - How do I troubleshoot login problems?

Documentation

Difficulty level:

Gebruikers - Logs

Logging in can fail in several places and in several ways. Always work through the same order: first establish where and how someone logged in, then open the user log, and only after that look at the e-mail.

Step 1: which entrance and which method?

i-Reserve has two entrances, each with its own login methods. Almost every report belongs to one of these paths.

Entrance	Address	Possible methods
Admin panel	/admin	Password, external provider (SSO), two-factor authentication, central hub
Front pages	front.php?mod=login	Password, one-time code by e-mail, external provider (SSO)

So always ask three things: which address, which button, and what the screen said literally. "Login does not work" cannot be investigated without those three answers.

Step 2: look in the user log

Go to Users and click the Logs button. Every attempt is listed there, successful or not.

Column	What it tells you
Action	What exactly happened, with the technical code underneath. See the list of action codes.
Result	Success or Fail. Note that a failed attempt followed by a successful one is usually just a typo.
Admin	Yes means the admin panel, empty means the front pages. This is how you tell the two entrances apart.
Username	What was typed. For an external provider this shows the name of that provider or the e-mail address.
DNS	The IP address or hostname of the visitor. Useful to see whether several attempts come from the same person.
User agent	Browser and device. If it says cli or taskrunner, the row comes from a background process, not from a person.
Date time	Compare this with the time the reporter mentions. If it differs, you are looking at the wrong row.

The code in the Action column tells you exactly where it went wrong: whether the username does not exist, the password was wrong, the account is not active, or the code had expired.

Step 3: no row at all?

Then the attempt never reached the login check. Think of:

a different (sub)domain or environment than the one you are looking at;
an old page from the browser cache, so the form points at an address that no longer exists;
blocked cookies or an adblocker that stops the captcha;
a time that does not match: ask the reporter to try again while you watch.

If there is a successful row at the same moment from a different IP address, it did work elsewhere and the problem sits with the device or network of the reporter.

Step 4: is it about an e-mail?

The login code, the password reset link and the username reminder all travel by e-mail. Creating them almost always works; sending and arriving is where it goes wrong. Go to Configuration > System > Logs - E-mails and search for the e-mail address of the user. The Result column tells you how far the mail got.

Result	Meaning	What you do
Not sent	i-Reserve did not hand the mail over.	Check whether the user has a valid e-mail address; the user log then holds a code pointing at a missing address.
Sent	The mail was handed to the mail server, no feedback yet.	Wait a moment and refresh; under load this can take a few minutes.
Delivered	The receiving server accepted the mail.	The mail arrived. If it is not in the inbox, have the recipient check spam and quarantine.
Opened	The recipient opened the mail.	The mail is certainly there. The problem is further along, for instance a code that has expired.
Failed	The receiving server refused the mail.	Read the Message column: unknown address, full mailbox or a refusal on reputation.

The templates used are called verify_login (the login code), forgotpassword, forgotusername and admin_password_reset. The same log also shows the sending domain and the SPF record: if mail structurally lands in spam, that is where the investigation starts.

Common reports

The reporter says	Where you look	Most common cause
"I do not get a login code"	E-mail log and the action code	No e-mail address on the user, or the mail is in the spam folder.
"My password does not work"	Action code: loginPass or loginNonex	With loginNonex the username is wrong; only with loginPass is it really the password.
"Suddenly I cannot log in any more"	Action code passwordCleared	The account was switched to logging in with an e-mail code.
"The Microsoft or Google login button does nothing"	Action codes starting with Oauth or loginExt	The user is unknown in i-Reserve, or the provider refuses consent.
"I am sent to a different login page"	Action codes starting with central	The account is managed centrally and logs in there.
"Nothing happens when I click log in"	No row in the log	Captcha, cookies or a wrong address: see step 3.

Rights

For the e-mail log you need the right menu_config_log_emails, for the error log menu_config_log_errors. The user log is opened with the Logs button on the Users screen.