Bug 171852 – [GTK] HipChat login not working

• Component: WebKitGTK
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Sander Hoentjen]

Originally reported at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=782318

At work we use HipChat to communicate. I would like to use Gnome Web (Application) for this. For some reason login in to HipChat never works from Epiphany. Now at some point I found out that if I open up a separate tab in Epiphany and I request the URL https://likeabosh.hipchat.com/http-bind/ there, then in the other tab the login completes and I can use HipChat as normal.

I tried both epiphany-3.22.7-1.fc25.x86_64 and epiphany-3.24.1-1.fc26.x86_64 with the same results.
I then used /usr/libexec/webkit2gtk-4.0/MiniBrowser and got the same results.
I used webkitgtk4-2.16.1-2.fc25.x86_64

[Sander Hoentjen]

I had contacted HipChat support, they told me the following:

"""
We have a bug which may be related to the behavior that you are seeing - HCPUB-387.

The method suggested there is to set the Epiphany browser to accept third-party cookies. Head to Preferences, then the Privacy tab, and change the Cookies to 'Always accept'. Please try these steps, and let us know if the problem persists.
"""

In https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/HCPUB-387?focusedCommentId=1057985&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-1057985
"""

[Sander Hoentjen]

Sorry, submitted too soon, anyway, in the HipChat bug was mentioned:

The HipChat web app works in Gnome Web (Epiphany), but only if you accept third-party cookies. In Preferences, on the Privacy tab, change Cookies to “Always accept”. You can then choose Save As Web Application from the menu.

Indeed, when I allowed third-party cookies HipChat started working fine. So I guess this is not a bug in WebKit?

[Adrian Perez]

(In reply to Sander Hoentjen from comment #2)
> Sorry, submitted too soon, anyway, in the HipChat bug was mentioned:
> 
> The HipChat web app works in Gnome Web (Epiphany), but only if you accept
> third-party cookies. In Preferences, on the Privacy tab, change Cookies to
> “Always accept”. You can then choose Save As Web Application from the menu.
> 
> Indeed, when I allowed third-party cookies HipChat started working fine. So
> I guess this is not a bug in WebKit?

Allowing third-party cookies is an option at the application level.
The fact that HipChat works when it enabled means that WebKitGTK+ is
working just fine. It would be nicer from a privacy POV if the HipChat
application would not require third-party cookies, but that's a decision
of the people who develop HipChat.

Let's close this now that the mystery is solved. Thanks a lot for
investigating this, Sander!

[Michael Catanzaro]

(In reply to Sander Hoentjen from comment #2)
> Sorry, submitted too soon, anyway, in the HipChat bug was mentioned:
> 
> The HipChat web app works in Gnome Web (Epiphany), but only if you accept
> third-party cookies. In Preferences, on the Privacy tab, change Cookies to
> “Always accept”. You can then choose Save As Web Application from the menu.
> 
> Indeed, when I allowed third-party cookies HipChat started working fine. So
> I guess this is not a bug in WebKit?

Yeah, the website is just broken if it relies on third-party cookies. Safari also blocks these by default. Does it not work in Safari either?

This is actually the first time I've actually seen a website break due to the no third-party cookies setting... but now I realize that this setting was broken until recently, so maybe it's not as safe as I had assumed....

[Sander Hoentjen]

Well I only have Linux so I can't try Safari, I asked a colleague who says it works fine for him, he confirmed "Accept cookies" was set to the default "allow from current website only"