Intermittent Failed Login: “You may have pressed the back button”

Problem statement

When users log-in, they experience occasional errors. There are several log entries with the following message:

You may have pressed the back button, refreshed during login, opened too many login dialogs, or there is some issue with cookies, since we couldn’t find your session. Try logging in again from the application and if the problem persists please contact the administrator.

This issue occurs randomly and is difficult to reproduce. Referenced this article Users occasionally see an error “You may have pressed the back button…” and verified that the ‘Tenant Login URI’ is properly set up in the configuration.

Cause

This error usually indicates that users either deleted their cookies or blocked the cookies. If using a custom domain, it needs to allow third-party cookies.

Solution

To resolve this issue, unblock third party cookies and do not delete the cookies. This applies to desktop users as well.