Intermittent login failure, only one(?) account affected - 4.5.11

[mrich]

Hello,

One of my users just notified me that they were not able to log in using the web interface. Using the administrator's interface I was able to view the mailbox without any problems. I reset the password and tried logging in as that user, and I saw the same thing: the web interface gives the "bad username/password" message.

So I lock/unlock the account, reset the password again, try various things, and it still will not let me in.

Then I try again after a couple of minutes of not touching it, and it works. Interesting.

I call the user back, give him his new password, and have him try to log in. Doesn't work. I try it myself, again using the new password: he's right, doesn't work.

But again, about 5 minutes later, I give it another try, and this time it does work.

All the while I verify that a few other user accounts are working just fine. All services up and running. No changes have been made to the server (or his account, AFAIK) recently.

When the login problem is occurring, I see this in /opt/zimbra/log/mailbox.log:

2008-08-20 16:18:38,447 INFO [http-443-Processor49] [ip=129.105.107.242;ua=ZimbraWebClient - FF3.0 (Win)/undefined;] SoapEngine - handler exception
com.zimbra.cs.account.AccountServiceException: authentication failed for username@mydomain.edu
at com.zimbra.cs.account.AccountServiceException.AUTH _FAILED(AccountServiceException.java:77)
at com.zimbra.cs.account.ldap.LdapProvisioning.verify PasswordInternal(LdapProvisioning.java:2490)
at com.zimbra.cs.account.ldap.LdapProvisioning.verify Password(LdapProvisioning.java:2420)
at com.zimbra.cs.account.ldap.LdapProvisioning.authAc count(LdapProvisioning.java:2300)
at com.zimbra.cs.account.ldap.LdapProvisioning.authAc count(LdapProvisioning.java:2285)
at com.zimbra.cs.service.account.Auth.handle(Auth.jav a:106)
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapEngine.dispatchRequest(SoapEng ine.java:266)
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapEngine.dispatch(SoapEngine.jav a:163)
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapEngine.dispatch(SoapEngine.jav a:85)
at com.zimbra.soap.SoapServlet.doPost(SoapServlet.jav a:220)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:709)
at com.zimbra.cs.servlet.ZimbraServlet.service(Zimbra Servlet.java:152)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet .java:802)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.in ternalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.do Filter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invo ke(StandardWrapperValve.java:213)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invo ke(StandardContextValve.java:178)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke( StandardHostValve.java:126)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke (ErrorReportValve.java:105)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invok e(StandardEngineValve.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(A ccessLogValve.java:541)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.servic e(CoyoteAdapter.java:148)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(H ttp11Processor.java:869)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol$Http11 ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11BaseProt ocol.java:667)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.process Socket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:527)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.LeaderFollowerWorkerThr ead.runIt(LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.java:80)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlR unnable.run(ThreadPool.java:684)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)



Note that this looks *exactly the same* as the message I get if I purposely enter a bad password at the login prompt, for what it's worth. Help? Right now the problem is "in remission" but I'd sure feel better if I knew what was going on.