topic Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what? in Alfresco Archive

Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

knowledgeblue — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:06:44 GMT

We deleted the guest user and now Alfresco will not let us log -in, How can we recreate the Guest User or get in another way?description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.exception org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException: Failed to authent

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

andy — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:09:07 GMT

Hi

Can you recreate the guest user as admin?

Regards

Andy

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

knowledgeblue — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:27:33 GMT

We actually found another workstation that still had a session still open to Alfresco. We went to that device, logged on as admin and reassigned the Guest User a Home Space. It appears the Guest User was not actually deleted, but the Guest Home Space was deleted. So now every thing is back to normal. However, it probably is not a good that you can delete the Guest User Space shut down the system. Is this a bug?

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

paulhh — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:46:48 GMT

Hi

For future reference, another way to get to the login screen would be to use:
http://server:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/login.jsp

It isn't a bug, in the general sense, because it is perfectly ligitimate to remove or change a user's home space. To catch this, we would have to put a test in every space delete to see if it was the space registered as the guest user's home space, which seems over the top. If an admin deletes the guest home by mistake, then getting in using the URL above will allow a new guest space to be defined.

Cheers
Paul.

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

paulhh — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 13:36:02 GMT

Another approach is to use the FTP, CIFS or WebDAV interfaces to just recreate the guest user's home space/folder.

Cheers
Paul.

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

glenvers — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:36:53 GMT

I have accidentally deleted Guest home space, and in my case the URL given above doesn't solve the problem, still having the same error message : "org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException: Failed to authenticate as Guest user"

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

steve — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:16:24 GMT

Hi,

You could always disable Guest access until you can recreate the space you deleted.

Steve

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

john — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:16:25 GMT

Hi,

I'm having exactly this problem. Hitting server:8080 produces this result:

HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

message

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException: Failed to authenticate as Guest user.
   org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationHelper.authenticate(AuthenticationHelper.java:209)
   org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationFilter.doFilter(AuthenticationFilter.java:67)

note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/5.5.12 logs.‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Trying to log in manually through
http://server:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/login.jsp
gives me a normal login screen, but for any all all users, even Admin, I get this result:

javax.faces.FacesException: Error calling action method of component with id loginForm:submit

caused by:
javax.faces.el.EvaluationException: Exception while invoking expression #{LoginBean.login}

caused by:
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.lang.Object.getHibernateLazyInitializer()Lorg/hibernate/proxy/LazyInitializer;‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Show details gives a very long stack trace that still doesn't reach the end (it stops at "5 more"). I can post that, if it would help.

Basically, it appears that the guest user has been disabled or deleted, and that I can't get in because of it. I can't recreate the guest user because I don't have access and I don't know what the guest user would look like if I did get access. Do you have any suggestions?

Running 1.3.0 on Fedora Release 4, with Tomcat.

If a reinstall is required, would I need to destroy and recreate the SQL database, or could I just reinstall the Alfresco files themselves and save the data that was previously entered?

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

john — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:40:20 GMT

After stopping and restarting the server, the admin password works again. Given that I know nothing about Alfresco and am arriving *after* all the damage has been done, what, exactly, should I do to ensure that the Guest user is there properly and configured correctly?

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

john — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:07:12 GMT

Update: Telling the system to undelete everything it could resulted in the guest space being restored, and Alfresco is now back up and running as it should be.

Knowing the correct procedure to restore the Guest Home if it *wasn't* possible to undelete it would be good, but currently it is up and running correctly.

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

kevinr — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:45:51 GMT

caused by:
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.lang.Object.getHibernateLazyInitializer()Lorg/hibernate/proxy/LazyInitializer;

This issue is a known problem with the Hibernate library - start your JVM using the -server option as a workaround. It's nothing to do with the Guest user, just a conicidence that this action gives you that exception. Going direct to the login page is the correct solution to allow admin login or similar.

After stopping and restarting the server, the admin password works again. Given that I know nothing about Alfresco and am arriving *after* all the damage has been done, what, exactly, should I do to ensure that the Guest user is there properly and configured correctly?

One solution is to create a new Alfresco installation with a fresh database and then Export the Guest space, save out the ACP file and then Import it into the Company Home space of the damaged installation. The same procedure can be used to quickly and easily recreate any of the special Alfresco folders such as Data Dictionary.

I think at some point we will give the Admin user the ability to re-create the special folders from the Admin Console - but this workaround of Export->Import will work for now.

I have raised an issue for the fact that deleting the Guest user space causes the exception on user login - instead it should automatically redirect the user to the login page:
http://issues.alfresco.com/browse/AWC-1082

Thanks,

Kevin

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

john — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:54:26 GMT

I have a usability question. Once again, I'm a brand new user, who had never seen Alfresco before this Monday when I was asked to fix the broken installation, so I apologise if this question seems very basic, but I don't see this issue in the documentation:

I want to find out what account deleted the Guest Home folders, and when.

When I examine the properties, they show as being created by Admin on Monday the 22nd at 3:50PM - which is when I *undeleted* them. They also show as version 1.0, and having never been modified.

Is there a way to show who deleted that folder, and when?

Re: Deleted Guest User - Cannot Log in, Now what?

kevinr — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:39:59 GMT

This information will have been recorded if you are using auditing - but it is not switched on by default for new installations. If you are using auditing then you can retrieve this information:
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Audit

The "deleted by user" column in the Manage Deleted Item screen will tell you who deleted the item - but this information is lost once you restore the item unless you are using auditing.

FYI

I have raised an issue for the fact that deleting the Guest user space causes the exception on user login - instead it should automatically redirect the user to the login page:
http://issues.alfresco.com/browse/AWC-1082

This issue has now been fixed for the next release and is in HEAD SVN.

Thanks,

Kevin