Change in "PTC Authentication" handling?

[ClayHelberg]

Has anyone else noticed a recent change in how authentication works? Up until about 2 weeks ago, I was able to add users with the "PTC Authentication" tag, and they were able to log into the Experience server using their usual PTC credentials. However, recently that seems to have stopped working. When users try to log in with their PTC credentials, they don't work on the Experience server any more. I've had to go in and change multiple users to have an explicit password instead of the PTC Authentication mechanism.

As the "owner"/admin of the Experience server, I'm still able to use my PTC credentials (thankfully, otherwise I wouldn't be able to fix these other accounts!).

The PTC Authentication was convenient. Was this an intentional change? If not, any guess when it might get fixed? @tmccombie or anyone else from PTC have any information on this?

[tmccombie]

Hi @ClayHelberg thanks for pointing this out. I'm looking into this and will get back to you. 

[ClayHelberg]

Thanks!

[tmccombie]

@ClayHelberg sorry for the delay here. Are the users that are experiencing this issue able to log into support.ptc.com? If their account is locked, the PTC authenticator used for the trial won't work. Locked users can submit a case to get it unlocked here: Web Account Case Logger

[ClayHelberg]

Hi @tmccombie -- yes, that was the first thing we checked. In the cases we've seen to date, the affected users had no trouble logging into the PTC support site, but were unable to use the same credentials to log in on the experience server.

[tmccombie]

@ClayHelberg Odd. I confirmed that we have not changed the functionality of the PTC authenticator. It should work as long as the user is not locked out of their account. Has any user tried changing their password for their PTC account? 

[ClayHelberg]

Hi @tmccombie -- I just had another user test it, and it worked for them. It also works OK for me. But two other users previously said they were able to log in on PTC.com, but the same credentials didn't work on the experience server. For those users, I simply added an explicit password in Thingworx so they could log on and use the system. I haven't tried going back to PTC authentication for those users yet. If I can find a good time in the schedule, I'll give that a try.

[tmccombie · Accepted solution]

Sounds good. Glad to hear it worked for a new user. Let me know if you find the other 2 users are still unable to use their PTC credentials.  

[ClayHelberg]

I recently did restore one of the users who was having issues to PTC Authentication, and it seems to work for them now. So I guess whatever was going on is resolved now. Thanks for looking into it, @tmccombie .