My wife’s email account is an alumna account at McGill of the form name.name@mail.mcgill.ca. We flew to our son’s in Boston 8 days ago with my travel computer, an MS Surface running Win-10 and using Firefox. I signed on to my McGill email account, worked fine. Then I switched user to her and she tried to sign on to hers. No go. It didn’t time out just sat there with the little widget running back and forth in the tab. So I stopped it and then tried to go through McGill’s home page, mcgill.ca. Same thing. It didn’t time out, just the little widget pacing back and forth in the tab. Tried some other web site. Perfectly normal. Finally, I rebooted. Everything back to normal. Yesterday the same thing repeated. Any site not connected to McGill perfectly fine. When I am the user, everything works. When she was user, no McGill site was accessible. Finally, I rebooted and all was well. I figure there has to be some cookie that is blocking it. For some reason it seems to be triggered only when we come in on a new IP (since we just travelled to my daughter’s on Sunday).
Can anyone give any explanation for this bizarre behavior?
Curiously, it has happened only when we changed from one IP to another as we went from one child to another. I will see what happens when we return home on Sunday.
Factor #1: When you use Switch User, your own session continues to exist in the background.
Factor #2: If there’s a VPN utility of some sort involved, it may be linked only to the (Windows) account that’s active at the moment the connection is established.
Factor #3: McGill’s webmail server may have some security restriction that prevents two different users from logging in simultaneously from the same IP, or (if VPN involved) from the same VPN connection.
So if you have time to kill, it may be worthwhile to try these in order :
(A) If there is one, terminating the VPN connection in your account before you Switch User.
(B) Logging out of, and closing, all McGill pages in Firefox in your account before you Switch User.
(C) Closing Firefox in your account before you Switch User.
(D) Logging out of your Windows account completely and then having your wife log on, and vice versa.
Be careful about erasing all cookies - do you really want to re-enter a lot of login data and preferences for everything on the web?
The suggestion to use anonympus browser is best.
Also, after reboot (Or power off, power on) just login with her account - the idea you still have some connection open for logging in yourself first could be the issue.
Or it may be that the website put a cookie on your system saying who you are (hence the suggestion for anonymous browser). However, I find it odd that in how many years, the computer department of a major uni has not noticed that two people sharing a computer would have difficulties?
You can delete cookies for individual websites, at least in Chrome (I’m sure it works with other browsers too). In Chrome, click on the icon just left to the URL in the address field to open “website information”. Go to “Cookies” and delete individual or all cookies for the site. Refresh the website and see if the issue goes away.
I don’t usually use VPN and have not been recently. Normally, we can both be signed it at the same time. I did not try exiting my email account but that is an interesting suggestion. The other thing I will try is (D). Also try edge browser, the only other browser currently installed.
I will likely need a new travel computer at some point. This Surface is getting on ten years old and the battery (which cannot be replaced) seems to be losing its ability to hold a charge.