Two reasons:
1. Member ID is invalid
2. Security hash is invalid

Some email clients break long URLs in the emails for whatever reason while others may incorrectly parse the link. Some users may incorrectly copy the URL as well. It's also possible that you enabled "pending" member group to login. Thus those members who haven't activated their account and logged in will not be able to activate it later.

There's no need to fix it as it's not a bug. Best thing to do is to try to register yourself and see if everything works properly.

Security hash a word consisting of 32 random characters. It's used to check if activation request is valid.

To my disapointment, I'm still getting the error ""Member ID or hash is invalid" when members click the activation link in the email.

I'm trying to figure out a way to best handle this.

Vlad, Mark or any programmer, is there a way to make this message more clear. When they click the link to activate their account, instead of getting the message "Member ID or hash is invalid" it would be nice if it said something more meaningful. For example "Sorry you got an invalid response when trying to activate your account. Please contact the admin at xxxxxxxx.com"

The members are confused by this message. The member thinks they did everything correctly -- signed up, clicked the link in the activation email, etc, and when they get the message that "Member ID or hash is invalid" they are frustrated and  confused.

Is there a way to change the error message to something more helpful to members?

thanks

Last edited by db3204 (2007-12-23 10:43:33)

Users are not typically programmers. They have no idea what a security hash or a hash is. I am only familar with cornbeef hash and hash brown potatoes.

What is needed is an explaination that the users can understand. Telling them something obscure like hash violation is not helpful. 

The standards for error messages state that the developer needs to provide not only what happened, but what to do next. And, neither of that information is available here.  information

Since most of us have no idea what it is or what to tell the users, it will continue to be a problem, bug or no bug. 

I see it all the time - but have no idea what to do about it.

Regards, Ellen Chen

This word "hash" was a problem for me in my first script, I didn't know what this was, and using a dictionary was only confusing me. You can't find this word anywhere if you have no experinces into scripts and whatever... So I didn't know what to write, and couldn't replace that text with whatever I liked. In my next script - when I had discovered what it was, I translated this "hash" to "Security code", because I couldn't find a better word.
"Scripts-nerds-words" like this would be nice to be explained somewhere for us who ain't accustomed to specifik scripts-words...

db3204 The sentense you wrote (""Sorry you got an invalid response when trying to activate your account. Please contact the admin at xxxxxxxx.com") is a very nice idea! When looking in my stat by my hosting, I see, that people get an error quite often, and ofcause some of them wont't retry or come back... I understand all the sentenses in languagesfiles now, but that particular sentense with "hash" I didn't know what part of the script it was connected with. This script is sold to people in the whole world, and SOME of us who haven't got English language from childhod, have some problems with the "technical language", and misunderstand some times.
I'll use your idea, and exchange all my error-sentenses :-)

This may be a question only vlad and mark can answer. If a customer gets the hash error, will pasting the link in the browsers address bar make a difference?

If it does, I can put such a statement in the validation email.

I wish there was a solution to this problem. Daily I get emails from members stating they received the hash error. What puzzles me is I never seen this error with any other script using activation by email be it forum, dating, blog, etc. In all cases, I always set up my scripts  so member activates his account by email.  vldPersonals was the first time I seen a hash error.

cheers

Last edited by db3204 (2008-01-28 09:29:02)

"member ID or hash is invalid" - member get this error only if they leave open first window where he carried out the registration. when you log in to e-mail in new (second window) and cliked on a link, confirmation page opens in a the third window and member see error because is already activated in first window. Sometimes members do not see the first window is not closed. But how to eliminate this problem,  I have no idea. Can someone tell me please ?