Three sites have suddenly stopped working on my laptop

Notepad_Phil

I'm hoping that someone out there may have some suggestions that may help me fix a problem that has just started when logging into 3 financial sites that I've previously been able to get onto without issue. I know that I've definitely been on one of the sites within the last week or so, and the other two within the last two to three weeks.

On one it starts to log me in and says that it is retrieving data but then simply logs me out a few seconds later, on one it starts to log me in but then simply shows a blank page with a 'Not authorized' piece of text at the top of the screen, the last logs me in but then at some random point between 1 and about 20 seconds sends me back to the initial login page. I've not tried all of the other financial type sites that I frequent, but the ones I have tried are still okay.

I'm using a modern laptop (couple of years old) running windows 10 (kept up to date with updates) and I've tried to log in on firefox, chrome and edge which are all on the latest updates using the internet via both my BT landline and an internet dongle. I've never used two of the browsers on these sites, so there's no cache etc, but I've deleted everything anyway from all the browsers for all three sites but no luck, as was disabling all of the extensions on the browsers I do use. I'm also ex-IT so am very careful with scam sites, downloading files, etc, and have just completed running the latest Windows Defender in Full Scan mode which as I expected returned 0 threats, there is no other anti virus software running.

Now the very strange thing is that on a slightly older laptop but running the same windows 10 and browsers I can log onto the three sites with absolutely no problem. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where the problem could lie?

Many thanks for any suggestions as I'm kind of stuck as to where I could start looking next for what's causing this.

steviebabes

I would try resetting your router first of all, then try Chrome incognito mode.

debitcardmayhem

Is the keyboard working correctly try a USB keyboard or the OSK (onscreen keyboard)

Notepad_Phil

Problem solved

My laptop clock was an hour ahead of what it should have been and putting it to the correct time has solved the issue. I'm assuming their web software is checking the browser time and giving up when it finds the time difference.

Many thanks

ps the clock is definitely the issue. If I set it an hour ahead it fails, put it to the right time and it works.

Neil_Jones

Notepad_Phil said:

Problem solved

My laptop clock was an hour ahead of what it should have been and putting it to the correct time has solved the issue. I'm assuming their web software is checking the browser time and giving up when it finds the time difference.

Many thanks

ps the clock is definitely the issue. If I set it an hour ahead it fails, put it to the right time and it works.

Shouldn't make any difference to the websites.  Bear in mind there are 37 "local times" across the world which means if its midday in London it could be anywhere between midnight and 2pm the next day depending on where you are in the world.

Its far more likely seeing as you've mentioned finance that the system checks what time it thinks it is and what time your computer says it is, so that means it will only be expecting you to log in from a specific timezone or maybe place, like the UK for example.  A few minutes either side makes no difference, but an hour would.  The browser doesn't really care what time it is.

Notepad_Phil

Neil_Jones said:

Its far more likely seeing as you've mentioned finance that the system checks what time it thinks it is and what time your computer says it is, so that means it will only be expecting you to log in from a specific timezone or maybe place, like the UK for example.  A few minutes either side makes no difference, but an hour would.  The browser doesn't really care what time it is.

I thought that was what I was saying in my comments, sorry if I wasn't clear.

Though on second thoughts I might have been too kind in them, as if there is a deliberate check then they've obviously not handled it well. More likely an exception is being thrown somewhere deep in the websites software stacks and they're not catching it, hence the rather terrible behaviour exhibited i.e. a blank page with "Not authorized" on it, or just being logged out.

Neil_Jones

It'll be standard practice to throw the request out if the system clock is out by days, but because of time zones, the time reported by the system can be anywhere up to 12hrs behind or n front of where the home system is, and even if it was in Kiribati (UTC+14) and you logged into it from Alaska (UTC-12), it would still be valid even though that's best part of 24hrs apart (for economic reasons in Kiribati the date line was moved from UTC-11 to UTC+14, effectively skipping an entire day, but that's another discussion and you can read more elsewhere).

If your system freaks out because your clock is only an hour out, that suggests to me that its not expecting access from (for argument's sake) outside UTC+1 at this time of year.

unforeseen

If the time is out compared to the timezone you are set to it will be rejected.
It the time is correct for the timezone then it will appear correct to other systems

If you have your time set to 12pm GMT but it is only 11AM then it fails. If your time is set to 12 PM CET then that is correct as it equates to 11AM GMT

onomatopoeia99

Neil_Jones said:

It'll be standard practice to throw the request out if the system clock is out by days, but because of time zones, the time reported by the system can be anywhere up to 12hrs behind or n front of where the home system is, and even if it was in Kiribati (UTC+14) and you logged into it from Alaska (UTC-12), it would still be valid even though that's best part of 24hrs apart (for economic reasons in Kiribati the date line was moved from UTC-11 to UTC+14, effectively skipping an entire day, but that's another discussion and you can read more elsewhere).

If your system freaks out because your clock is only an hour out, that suggests to me that its not expecting access from (for argument's sake) outside UTC+1 at this time of year.

Amazingly, both the current time and the timezone can be sent to the server, or more simply the number of seconds since the beginning of time (00.00.00 01/01/1970 UTC).  If the UTC time is calculated at the client end then that's inherently adjusted for the timezone the device is using and the server doesn't have to worry about what timezone the person is in. 

It only becomes a problem if they have their time apparently correct but they have configured the wrong timezone or DST option so when calculated back to UTC the time of their device is wrong.

[Deleted User]

Neil_Jones said:

It'll be standard practice to throw the request out if the system clock is out by days, but because of time zones, the time reported by the system can be anywhere up to 12hrs behind or n front of where the home system is, and even if it was in Kiribati (UTC+14) and you logged into it from Alaska (UTC-12), it would still be valid even though that's best part of 24hrs apart (for economic reasons in Kiribati the date line was moved from UTC-11 to UTC+14, effectively skipping an entire day, but that's another discussion and you can read more elsewhere).

If your system freaks out because your clock is only an hour out, that suggests to me that its not expecting access from (for argument's sake) outside UTC+1 at this time of year.

That's not quite how it all works...


Computers work on universal time (UTC) under the hood so time zones don't make any difference to the underlying clock - all correctly set computers in the world will have the same UTC time stored internally. When computers communicate with each other using clock based data, they use UTC to avoid any issues with time zones.

A time zone is just an adjustment that is applied for the presentation of the clock to the user. For example, you can use a time server to sync your computer clock from any country in the world as it provides the UTC time, the settings on the computer will then adjust UTC by however many hours the locale requires for display purposes to the user but keeps the underlying clock the same as UTC.

The OP can prove this by setting his timezone to something +1 hour or more and will find that the websites that failed will now still work as they don't care what timezone you want to use on your clock on screen, however because the underlying UTC time will still be correct, they will work.


Most websites don't care about the time on the computer but for secure financial websites, it is possible the website has implemented a check regarding the clock that caused an error to be triggered, maybe the way they check the timeout period uses the local clock or some extra security to prevent spoofed data being used, not sure of exactly why.