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I am getting this error repeatedly when I try to login to the Physics Stack Exchange site for the first time using a Google id.

Sorry, your request could not be completed because it looked suspicious. If you meant to perform an action on Physics, please return to the previous page and try again.

I am using few other Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow sites, https://stackexchange.com/users/107581/vi-su

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  • Me too, using MyOpenId.com - on all Stack Exchange sites. I go back, resubmit and it works. This is consistent, fails first time, succeeds second time.
    – Mawg
    Commented Jul 4, 2013 at 0:24
  • It seems that I get this error when I am using Google open ID and I have logged in with 2 Google accounts - I have a separate Google profile at work, so when at work I am logged with both my work and my personal profiles. SE account is associated with my personal profile, but I guess the authentication may get confused when I am logged in Google with both ones. I do not have the issue at home, where I am usually logged with only my personal profile
    – Ivaylo Slavov
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 6:45

5 Answers 5

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From what I can tell, your ISP likes to assign you different IP addresses more or less by the second – and that's only slight hyperbole. As an example: between 10:02:48 and 10:05:42, a timeframe of just under three minutes, you made requests from fifteen (!) different IP addresses (most of these were heartbeat requests while writing this very question, so they all came from the same computer).

We don't usually require sticky IPs (in particular once you're logged in it shouldn't be an issue), but if during the process of logging in your IP address changes, that's extremely fishy, and that's why we bail out.

So when this happens, all I can tell you is to reload https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/login and click the Google button again, in the hope that your ISP lets you keep the same IP address for a few seconds :)

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  • 26
    That's one screwed up ISP. o.o
    – J. Steen
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 14:01
  • Perhaps the asker is using Tor or other anonymizing software?
    – BinaryTox1n
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 20:49
  • @BinaryTox1n No, the IPs are all in the same /24 block.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 20:50
  • 2
    I've had the same trouble in the last two days (thanks to a hard drive crash, I have to re-login to every SE site). But as far as I know, my IP address is (more or less) static. Could anything else be causing the message?
    – mmyers Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 20:28
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    @mmyers Sorry to tell you, but your IP address is just as flaky. Each request from you appears to come from one random out of five different IPs.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 21:06
  • 4
    So the solution is to try, try again? I did eventually get into chat.se today, but I'm not excited about going through this on 10 or 15 more sites.
    – mmyers Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 21:27
  • I'm seeing this as well, but only on my Android tablet using Opera. I can log onto SO just fine on my Mac, Linux, IOS, & Windows boxes, both here at home & at work (different providers). I've tried logging on several times in a row on the Android device (Galaxy Tab 7.7 w/ Gingerbread), but I can never get logged on. It's more of an annoyance than a problem, but I'd be curious what I could do to be able to log on with that tablet.
    – delliottg
    Commented May 19, 2013 at 23:07
  • Almost a year late, but maybe you recall: I assume those were IPv4 addresses? (With IPv6 I am using Privacy Addressing which implies changing IP addresses as well, though not at all as often as above. I'm not trying to hide the IP address, but want to ensure my computer's MAC address is not in the address. I've not seen the problem, but I guess it might happen once in a lifetime that I'd see the same error once you use IPv6 as well.)
    – Arjan
    Commented Feb 14, 2014 at 22:52
  • (Oh, forget my above question, balpha. Of course those were IPv4 addresses, as SE is not accessible over IPv6 yet. Maybe the IPv6 Privacy Addressing might be a rare and minor issue in the future.)
    – Arjan
    Commented Feb 15, 2014 at 10:12
  • I have the same trouble, but I think it is a different case. We cannot access stackoverlow.com in China, so we have to use proxy. Most of us use google appengine as the proxy. So I think you guys have restricted access on appengine IPs. Can you guys fix this?
    – David S.
    Commented Mar 17, 2014 at 12:52
  • @davidshen84 No, it's not a different case. It's the exact same issue. Your proxy gives you different IP addresses for every request: I checked your access log for last Thursday. You made 28 authenticated requests to the site, and they came from 18 different IPs.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Mar 17, 2014 at 13:23
  • @balpha so how do you recommend me to resolve this issue?
    – David S.
    Commented Mar 19, 2014 at 0:14
  • @davidshen84 Either use a better proxy (at least during login), or do what I said in the answer's last paragraph.
    – balpha StaffMod
    Commented Mar 19, 2014 at 6:40
  • I have this problem consistently on my iPad with any other StackExchange site other than StackOverflow. Yet it works on my Computer using the mobile network from the same iPad. Needless to say, a simple reload does not help. Any more helpful advise?
    – Dmitri Zaitsev
    Commented Apr 19, 2014 at 6:56
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    Thanks for your explanation. It's the reason why I can't login into StackOverflow with Google Apps Engine as proxy. However, this check makes it difficult for me to login, for 1. Your sites sometimes are blocked by the mad Great Firewall of China; 2. My current ISP is strange, it not only uses different IPs for different targets, but may also changes IPs back and forth for the same target....
    – lilydjwg
    Commented Dec 7, 2014 at 9:24
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This is the only thread I've read on this issue but in my experience the explanation above isn't sufficient. I've experienced it predictably during my last 3 logins. First on stackoverflow yesterday, then on programmers.stackexchange.com just now (right after login) and finally again as I logged into meta to reply to this thread. All I've done differently this week is reset chrome's history (all the way back).

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  • Me too, using MyOpenId.com - on all Stack Exchange sites. I go back, resubmit and it works. This is consistent, fails first time, succeeds second time.
    – Mawg
    Commented Jul 4, 2013 at 0:25
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When you got into that error page, just refresh the page on your browser. If your browser asks confirmation for resend the data, just agree with it. This works for me in firefox v26.

Don't go back and click the open ID link again, it won't work. You will get same error page.

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    This works for me too. Thanks!
    – Detective King
    Commented Apr 17, 2014 at 10:37
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I am getting this error too, and in my case the problem is IP address which is changing rapidly.

My DSL line is low speed, so I set up a load balancer with 4 different IP addresses to load balance.

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  • So if you use only one IP address the error goes away?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 11:36
  • The changing IP-addresses is exactly what balpha in the acceped answer describes. How is this helpful?
    – rene Mod
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 11:37
  • @ShadowWizard yes, if i use one ip, there is no problem.
    – EngineerCoder
    Commented Feb 15, 2017 at 8:30
  • I have created firewall rule for stackoverflow.com; route only one dsl and then problem solved.
    – EngineerCoder
    Commented Feb 15, 2017 at 8:31
  • @rene this answer explains a possible cause for the IP change, so it is kind of helpful.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 15, 2017 at 8:33
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I tried refreshing login page. But I was not able to login using google id. I tried this 5-6 times. Finally I went to sign up page and used google id. when you are already signed up for the site the sign up helps you to sign in. So I was able to login.

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