Issues logging in while using Safari in private mode

Brian LeBlanc

Wanted to give you a heads up on something that has popped up occasionally over the past few weeks that I was just able to isolate today. It seems that a new update of Safari on both Mac and iOS has changed private mode such that it won’t allow for logins into a school’s EMS or SIS database. If a user tries to log in using Safari in private mode, it will take them to their app.blackbaud.com profile page, but trying to go through to the school’s own database will only return the user to the login screen again (and logging in will go back to the Blackbaud page again).

I have tested this with two different schools that both use Blackbaud – my daughter goes to a different school from the one I work at, so I have a BBID to log in there as well and was able to replicate the problem in that database, so it’s definitely not isolated to a single database.

My guess is that Apple has made some sort of change to how Safari’s private mode handles cookies. For now we are going to tell our parents and staff to not use Safari private mode to log in. Regular mode Safari works fine, as does Chrome in both regular and incognito mode and as far as I know Microsoft Edge is also unaffected.

I will submit a support ticket as soon as I'm able to (my support access is a little wonky right now; hopefully in the next day or so) but wanted to get this info out there so you all were aware.

Coco Parham

@Brian LeBlanc Brian thank you! That is so timely since I just received an email from a parent having login difficulties. I will let her know!

Julie Horvath

@Brian LeBlanc

Thanks Brian. Looks like this is similar to the issues reported in this topic:

Brian LeBlanc

@Julie Horvath It definitely sounds similar, but it's not restricted to iOS only. I tested on both iOS and Mac today and ran into issues on both. I think it's a Safari thing generally, not necessarily related to the OS. My first hunch was that it was a Google authentication thing, but I had the parent I was working with disconnect her sign in with Google and go back to a standard username/password, and the problem still occurred so it was obvious that wasn't the issue (and this makes me think it probably isn't a Yahoo issue either).

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Brian LeBlanc So appreciate your taking the time to share this!

Brian LeBlanc

Just chatted with support and they basically told me that since it's a change with permissions within the browser, Blackbaud can't do anything about it. The only way to avoid it is to not use Safari in private mode. Sigh. (At least we know that a fix isn't coming, I guess?)

Julie Horvath

@Brian LeBlanc
Thank you!