Custom Tab suddenly not working in IE (works fine in Firefox)

[thusker]

Weird issue happening--thought I'd see if anyone has thoughts or suggestions.

We have a tab in SFDC pointed to a web portal--users really like it.  When they click on the tab, it opens the login page for teh portal, they log in, and they access the pages they need while still looking as though they are inside SFDC.  Has always worked fine.

The other day, a user calls me and says that they can't log in through the tab.  Sure enough, when I try it, the tab opens the login page--but when you log in, it sits there thinking about it but then it just refreshes and returns the same login page.  I have no idea when this started or what may be causing it.  

I'm wondering if it's an IE setting or something--since IE constatly does the "Security Risk" check for everyone.  The tab works absolutely fine in Firefox, which is what I have been using more of anyway.  But has anyone else seen that kind of behavior with custom tabs and IE?

[JCoppedge]

My guess is this is an older version of IE?  From what I understand the older versions ignore web standards, and therefore draw sites completely differently than other browsers.  I ran into this problem myself on a different project, but have not fixed it yet.  I believe hacks are needed for CSS/HTML to rectify.  I found this install that will let you check backwards compatibility with IE: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Best of luck!

John

[thusker]

Not sure what this other user is running . . . I'll ask.  I'm on IE 7 and getting the same behavior.  Pretty weird.

[RickWild]

I believe the problem is to do with cookies.

If you set IE Tools-->Internet Options-->Privacy-->Settings to "Low" or "Accept all Cookies" you will probably find you can access the web portal. As you say it works with Firefox - I have also tested Opera and Chrome - both work fine.

Please could you let me know if this workaround helps.

I realise that turning down Privacy in IE, or mandating a non-IE browser, is not a solution. I am currently investigating the issue because one of our portals shows the same behaviour. The text in IE suggests the problem is that IE thinks the cookie the portal is leaving could be used to spam you. I think this would have to be fixed by the portal provider.