ReadWriteWeb, Movable Type, and Vidoop OpenID: Broken

Warning: user-focused “I just want this damn thing to work” rant ahead.

It’s no secret that I’m a big proponent of OpenID. Last year I took a stand that I would avoid participation on tech-focused blogs that didn’t support OpenID. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that I couldn’t sign into ReadWriteWeb using my Vidoop OpenID.

I contacted Vidoop, and was told:

I’ve done some more troubleshooting with our friends at ReadWriteWeb, the issue is that they aren’t configured to handle “https” (SSL) connections, and we don’t allow OpenID associations with websites who don’t use SSL to verify with us.

This makes sense to me. The main reason I use Vidoop is because of their excellent security and the fact they require a SSL connection is a good thing. I then contacted Richard at ReadWriteWeb; he bounced the issue to his Movable Type consultant, who responded with this:

I have forwarded this on to Byrne at Six Apart. This seems like something that should be supported natively by MT’s OpenID auth module. I will share any feedback that comes back from 6A.

That was in March 2008. It’s now February 2009, and I’m still receiving “An error occurred: The sign-in attempt was not successful; please try again.” when attempting to log in to what should be an easy authentication system for end users.

Why is this so hard? What’s going on?

  • http://www.readwriteweb.com Richard MacManus

    Aaron, thanks for the reminder / kick in the pants! ;-) I'm following up, hope we can get this sorted asap.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/markcarey markcarey

    Aaron, please give it a try now. I think I have it working now…

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/ahockley ahockley

      I'm still seeing the same error: "An error occurred: The sign-in attempt was not successful; please try again."

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ahockley ahockley

    An update for anyone following along: I've been working back and forth with Mark and RWW. I've narrowed it down… it's working using a username.myvidoop.com OpenID, but when delegation comes into play, it's failing. Will update the post if we get any solid answers.

  • http://samat.org/ Samat Jain

    I’m using a delegated OpenID as well (samat.org through Verisign; I believe they requires SSL as well?), and MovableType sites/ReadWriteWeb won’t accept my login either.

    • http://samat.org/ Samat Jain

      I should mention the error I receive with ReadWriteWeb is even more cryptic than suggested:

      undefined entity

      Providing as much information as possible so a user has at least a chance to debug things would be great…

  • http://collantes.us/ David Collantes

    As of today, MT is still broken (the OpenID part). See http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/simpleid/ticket/8 for some explanation.

  • http://collantes.us/ David Collantes

    As a side note, the OpenID plugin for WordPress (consuming) also has issues, at least with 2.8.x. No word from the developers or fix on the horizon… yet.