Trying to add rss feed to reader with session cookie not working

I’m trying to add a feed to tt-rss that requires authentication. I tried adding username and password but got a failure. I also tried including the session cookie in the URL with no luck. The same RSS URL works fine in IE, where I haven’t yet logged in, so I’m really not sure what I’m doing wrong. Is there a specific format required for subscribing to an RSS feed with a session cookie used for auth?

It’s unlikely that simply including the session ID in the feed URL is going to work. Even if it did, the mere fact that it’s a session means it’ll likely stop working at some point in the future.

You provided almost no information so that means you probably didn’t read the Read before posting post. You should go do that.

No seriously, go now, we’ll wait.

Welcome back.

I assume you’ll have some more information to provide shortly. In the mean time, how did you add the authenticated feed: did you include the username and password in the URL or did you add them separately (using the dedicated fields for username and password in the subscribe dialog box)? Exactly what error are you getting? Without knowing the error no one here can really provide any help.

(Knowing the feed will also help but I think it goes without saying that you should not post your private credentials for it here.)

So now that you have your douchery out of your system (“no seriously, go now, we’ll wait”), what additional information do you suggest I include?

I already mentioned that the EXACT same url worked perfect in a browser in which I never logged into the site in question, proving that the url itself works.

Also, I agree with you that it will stop working at some point in the future, and I expect that, because the last time I used TT-RSS, I used the EXACT same url format and every few months I had to provide a new url/session string. That said, I admit it was around a year ago when I last used it. I expect that things can change, which is why I came here looking for assistance. I used to go to the old forums many years ago and people were actually helpful, instead of people like yourself.

Now, with that out of the way, given that I’ve proven that the url works outside of tt-rss, and I’ve also confirmed that the exact same url format used to work in tt-rss, and you mentioned that my first post lacked so much information, why don’t you tell me what information I should be providing, oh high-and-mighty MacUser?

I just realized that in your “welcome back” you were actually asking legit questions instead of continuing your demonstration of superiority.

Here’s the exactly url format I used:

https://domain.com/rss.php?f=8&sessu=SESSIONID

The error I’m receiving is an unauthorized, indicating that it’s not accepting the session in tt-rss, despite the same url working fine in IE.

Also, FYI, I tried using the username and password option for an authenticated feed, however that failed (and has failed in all prior versions of tt-rss I’ve used.

Also, for completeness, up until about a year ago I had been using tt-rss for around 10 years. I looked back through my email, and I signed up for the original forums at tt-rss.spb.ru on 10/27/2006, in case you find that to be relevant.

After further thought, I’ve come up with a far more specific question to ask, which I can do so in a separate post if desired:

What is the difference between tt-rss and IE, in regards to how it passes session data in the URL?

In my scenario, IE worked fine with the url in question, whereas tt-rss did not.

You posted virtually no information about TT-RSS or the site in question other than to say, “The same RSS URL works fine in IE,” and then call me names because I directed you to a post that quite literally tells you what information to provide:

And further has some basic instructions for gathering feed debug information.

Right. And I provided it. I said read the required post first so you know what information to provide. Then I went on to provide some troubleshooting anyway.

Yes.

No, it was a little tongue in cheek. You’ve taken it way too personally.

What would be great to know is what the feed debugger says and what version of TT-RSS you’re using.

Honestly, if the session ID worked at one point, that’s great, but a real fix is to get TT-RSS to use the username/password for the feed so that it always works. Maybe you have characters in your username/password that are URL encoded when you setup the feed and thus are being encoded twice. Maybe the site checks the originating IP in it’s session to prevent session hijacking.

For debugging purposes, can you try a username/password that uses only alphanumeric characters (temporarily, to rule out some kind of weird encoding issue on your end, TT-RSS’s end, or the site’s end)?

There are lots of reasons for things to fail. Maybe it is a bug in TT-RSS. Maybe it’s one that’s been fixed and you’re not running the latest version. The list goes on and I can write tens or hundreds of ideas but I’d rather just ask a few questions and get things working for you in a more timely manner.

e: One other thought: Try fetching the URL from a shell on the server using something like curl. Try with username/password and separately with the session ID. See if either of those works or fails and report the returned HTTP status code.

Probably nothing. IE certainly passes a different user-agent, might pass some cookies depending on things.

What’s probably happening is that the session the site’s server stores information such as the client IP, user-agent, or some other unique value; when the other client (TT-RSS in this case) tries to use the same session ID, the site rejects it. It’s to prevent session hijacking (e.g. someone captures your session ID while you’re using public wifi and tries to use it later to access your account).

So now that you have your douchery out of your system (“no seriously, go now, we’ll wait”), what additional information do you suggest I include?

just so you know the exact quote you’re suspended for, op