Apple says sign-in fix is on the way

Apple recently acknowledged some problems with access to its online KnowledgeBase, discussions, and My Info areas. The company said that the application used to manage Apple IDs has recently been changed and has been causing slow performance.

“The signin applications was changed by Apple’s IT organization a few weeks back, removing the ability to set the persistent AppleID cookie, forcing all customers to log in every single time before proceeding to kbase or discussions in order to get the session based cookie (ACID) required for access. This was done to address a security concern,” said Apple.

“Since many customers do not have an AppleID cookie set in their web browser, they are forced to manually log in to obtain the session cookie (ACID) which takes more time and forces the signin servers to deal with a many more longer sessions. This is why when you click on a knowledge base or discussions link, it seems to take a very long time to get just to the sign-in page.

“The workarounds are to first do one of the following:

Visit the Apple Online Store and sign into your account. Your Apple ID cookie will be set.

Visit a product support page and click on an individual article link (not a canned search or any procedure article). We’ll set your AppleID cookie.

Visit discussions (signin will be slow) and sign in. We’ll set your AppleID cookie.

“Upon any return visit, you will not be required to manually login to access kbase or discussions.

Apple notes that its IT organization is working to add capacity to the sign in servers, and the security problem has been addressed by other means. The company is attempting to restore the ability to set Apple ID from sign in shortly.