A few students can not log in to Maker App

CS Discoveries
#1

I have a small number of students that always get an error message “something went wrong” and can not login to their account in the maker app to work with the circuit playground. They can log in to chrome to do code.org assignments but the serial connector chrome extension for the circuit playground is no longer working so they can not use circuit playground on chrome either.

Both the logins and serial connector extension were working earlier in March but in the last week this error started happening when they had to start using a separate browser to verify their login to get a pass code to get into the maker app.

I have two of fourty students that can not use the maker app because the maker app tells them that “something went wrong” with their login but they can get into code.org with the same login. The chrome serial extension is not an app because that has stopped working for all my students in the last two weeks. Any ideas how to fix, or work around?

#2

@carr,

Can you reach out to support@code.org and see if they can help you troubleshoot it? The more information you can give them (such as account names, which browser they are using and which version of the browser) will help them to help you.

Mike

#3

If you are still having problems, it would also be helpful to have the following information:

  • Which Circuit Playground are you using, the Classic or Express model?
  • Also, on the machines having problems, can you visit http://studio.code.org/maker/setup and send a screenshot of what you see
  • Also, are you using Chrome books or are you using a desktop computer with a Chrome browser or something else?

All of these can help debug it better.

thanks again,

Mike

#4

I think we have classic as they are several years old.

The problem is not machine specific as the same computer and playground work for other users. It is specific to these users that are denied login when trying to get into the maker app no mater which machine they use. What is really odd is the same users are not denied login when they try to get into code.org from a browser. I thought the maker app was just a chrome browser with serial port permissions, which makes the problem very odd.

This problem did not exist until sometime the middle of March, everything was working before spring break, but after there were changes. There is now a login authentication when using the maker app. The maker app opens a default browser and makes a student get authentication codes to paste into the maker app. Ever since this, two students out of forty have been denied login to the make app by an error screen that simply says “something went wrong.”

#5

@carr,

In that case, I still recommend contacting support@code.org with the information on the affected accounts as well as looking at your Circuit Playgrounds and letting them know for sure if they are classic or express (Here’s a link that will help you identify which one you are using for sure: Classic vs. Express | Adafruit Circuit Playground Express | Adafruit Learning System)

They should be able to help you from there.

Mike

#6

I was able to find a work around that may help others in a similar situation.

From the Student Management page I gave students their code.org prescribed username, it’s usually not one they gave themselves. It is visible for the the teacher’s Student Management tab after you click on a specific class in your dashboard. I also had to reset their password to something they could remember. Using their username and new password, they were able to skip “sign in with google.” Because the error was occurring when their browser was supposed to give them a verification code after verifying the google account, this allowed them to by pass google verification all together. It solved our problem. I did report my problem and work around to support@code.org. The support team would probably like to know if others experience this so they can better track down any underlying issue. The student’s accounts are still broken in some way, I just found a way to work around it, support said the are keeping the issue open to find a way to resolve it better.

In my case the issue does not seem to have anything to with the playground, the or the students following directions or procedures. There accounts just would not give them a verification code when signing in with google, and it was a very small number of students compared to the accounts that had no trouble at all.

2 Likes
#7

Good news! And thanks for sharing your solution in the forum. I’m sure it will help others!

Mike