PSA: Users are being logged into wrong accounts

[Buizel]

In regards to a pet almost being traded earlier because of this, the user in the screenshot posted more info about it in the Neopets discord. They said the transfer was initiated by the other player, not them, and that they were able to deny the transfer request. They also said they sent a report over it to TNT as well.

Honestly, people try to make cheaters out to be bad guys, but most people that scorn us sure didn't miss to hop on the chance to potentially gain from this. That's why I'll never take criticisms they say about us serious lol.

[samsepiol]

So it ultimately seems that FOR SOME REASON cached pages of currently logged in users were being fetched at random and displayed to the wrong users and that the clock was always off in those loaded pages states. You could not actually interact with or manipulate the account you were “logged into” in any way and clicking to another page would send you back to your info or another random account.

1) I wonder if this somehow happened while trying to correct the clock from slipping again.

2) Love how the site came up and we have had 0 actual communication from TNT on the issue. I would give them a pass for shutting down the site for maintenance and relaunching hours later but at this point, someone should have taken time to address it. I don’t want a non-answer from Dom in an “AMA” next month. Not good enough. Explain it and what you’re doing to protect your user base.

[Corliss]

It is a weekend - seems to me there's probably a software engineer on-call who was able to fix it, possibly with the help of other engineers, but we won't hear from TNT (if at all) until they're all back on Monday since it's probably a different person's responsibility. TNT is pretty short-staffed so I dont see them having someone ready to jump on all weekend to deal with communicating to the userbase.

[Trash Panda]

So it ultimately seems that FOR SOME REASON cached pages of currently logged in users were being fetched at random and displayed to the wrong users and that the clock was always off in those loaded pages states. You could not actually interact with or manipulate the account you were “logged into” in any way and clicking to another page would send you back to your info or another random account.

1) I wonder if this somehow happened while trying to correct the clock from slipping again.

2) Love how the site came up and we have had 0 actual communication from TNT on the issue. I would give them a pass for shutting down the site for maintenance and relaunching hours later but at this point, someone should have taken time to address it. I don’t want a non-answer from Dom in an “AMA” next month. Not good enough. Explain it and what you’re doing to protect your user base.

The fact that they didn’t address anything is so disappointing, like, the page was down for HOURS and they couldn’t even post some kind of explanation of what happened or anything to let us know that at least everything’s ok now?

Same old disappoinTNT

[samsepiol]

It is a weekend - seems to me there's probably a software engineer on-call who was able to fix it, possibly with the help of other engineers, but we won't hear from TNT (if at all) until they're all back on Monday since it's probably a different person's responsibility. TNT is pretty short-staffed so I dont see them having someone ready to jump on all weekend to deal with communicating to the userbase.

It’s Monday though and there was a News update plus unscheduled social media posts about the downtime. They were just vague. Even if the staff is out this whole week prior to Thanksgiving in the US, there is 0 reason that Dom, if no one else, couldn’t be assed to address why everyone’s accounts were suddenly visible to any and everyone and potentially exposing sensitive data about our accounts. I’m not willing to give them benefit of the doubt on this. It’s not a silly glitch, it’s a potentially exploitable backdoor in the wrong hands.

[♥ SomeClown ♥]

shame there isn't some loud mouth making board over on reddit. Ya know, claiming they knew about this vulnerability. I'm beginning to think views held here, on a certain issue, may be at hand...
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Would have been cool to see random stuff for a minute lol

[Synth Salazzle]

In regards to a pet almost being traded earlier because of this, the user in the screenshot posted more info about it in the Neopets discord. They said the transfer was initiated by the other player, not them, and that they were able to deny the transfer request. They also said they sent a report over it to TNT as well.

Honestly, people try to make cheaters out to be bad guys, but most people that scorn us sure didn't miss to hop on the chance to potentially gain from this. That's why I'll never take criticisms they say about us serious lol.

For some reason they're afraid to admit they want to actually be here so they pretend to be superior.

[Styx]

Pigs will fly first before TNT is ever forthcoming about the issues on their site, regardless of the severity.

[samsepiol]

We have a response from TNT, posted on Facebook.

FEAR NOT, NEOPIANS! An update from the Neopets Team:

We know yesterday’s technical difficulties were stressful for our community, and we’re here to provide you all with an update. Firstly, thank you to our incredible players for their patience, understanding, and for being so vigilant.

On Monday, 20th November at approximately 8:30AM PST, we were alerted to an issue on-site where users were finding themselves logged into incorrect accounts. The site was taken down shortly after for emergency maintenance to protect our players. We remained offline while our team conducted thorough investigations and fixes.

Unfortunately, this cache error occurred as we are in the midst of upgrading our infrastructure and service provider. We can confirm that while players may have appeared in other accounts, no changes were made to accounts. We understand that this was a major concern for our players but rest assured your account remains unchanged and as you left them.

Services are now operating normally and The Neopets Team is continuing to monitor the site closely. Our system migration will be complete by 22nd November 2023. If you are still experiencing any issues, please contact our Customer Support team by submitting a ticket here: (you need an account to see links)

We truly apologise for the inconvenience and concern this may have caused. Thank you to everyone who submitted reports, and for supporting us as we worked hard to bring Neopets.com back up and running!

[DarkSkies]

If it really is an upgrade of infraestructure that would be amazing to see they're making an effort.

But tbh I find myself hard to believe after everything that has happened xD