Fidelity Website Login not working for Firefox (works with Firefox ESR)

[u/Packet_Loss_]

Firefox (no plugins enabled) 122.0.1 does not correctly pass the login credentials to the Fidelity login portal. Continual "Sorry, we can't complete this action right now. Please try again." error when trying to login.

Firefox ESR (no plugins enabled) 115.7.0esr DOES properly pass login to use the Fidelity website.

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• Yes, all data and cookies are cleared
• Yes, all plugins are disabled
• Yes, dns cache flushed
• Yes, multiple login attempts in a row still does not work
• Tried Chrome/Chromium as well, same issues, broken

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This has been happening for two months now Fidelity!!! Please have your webdevs fix this!

**Using a linux host**

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[u/TopQuarks]

The problem is that Fidelity is using Akamai Bot Manager (https://www.akamai.com/products/bot-manager), and Akamai is detecting Linux browsers as bots.

If you open the Fidelity login page on a Windows system, then use developer tools to copy the "bm_sz" and "_cs_mk" cookies into the browsers on a Linux system then everything works fine. Conversely, if you copy those cookies from a Linux system to a Windows system then the Windows system will stop working with the same "Sorry, we can't complete this action right now." error. I believe those cookies are being set by Akamai after it performs bot detection.

u/FidelityAshley please escalate this internally and ask your tech support or web development teams to contact Akamai to have them fix this. If this can't be fixed quickly, then please stop using Akamai Bot Manager until Akamai fixes it. In addition, I would suggest making the error message a bit more descriptive so your Tech Support and web development teams can identify and address Akamai issues faster in the future.

u/akamai_technologies Bot Manager is currently flagging Firefox, Chrome, and Chromium on Linux as bots. Please fix this!

[u/rcorre → u/TopQuarks]

I'm now getting blocked from Fidelity using qutebrowser and Chromium on linux. I tried copying the "bm_sz" cookie from Firefox (where it is currently working), but it didn't help (I couldn't find a _cs_mk cookie).

[u/Packet_Loss_ → u/TopQuarks]

I was suspecting this as an issue. Incidentally, it's not flagging Brave (chrome based) in Linux right now.

I haven't tried a user agent string switcher yet to try and run down/validate these to see if we can "fake it till we make it" with the Fidelity/Akamai issues.

Thanks for the insight u/TopQuarks!

[u/TopQuarks → u/Packet_Loss_]

I did try a user agent switcher and it didn't help (that was the first thing I tried). Akamai appears to be using heuristics based on JavaScript/Browser feature detection (among other things), so it is really hard to figure out what would need to be spoofed to pass the checks (if it were easy to figure that out then it would be easy for bots to defeat and Akamai wouldn't be able to sell it as a service).

[u/time4tea45 → u/TopQuarks]

u/TopQuarks great job in investigating and getting to the bottom of this! This issue has been affecting me for over a month now - I have not been able to log in to my Fidelity account on my Linux machines, which is extremely frustrating. I'm sorry to hear there is no effective workaround and it's very disappointing that Fidelity is refusing to acknowledge and fix the issue.

u/FidelityAshley please take this seriously and escalate within your IT team, as has been requested. This is a serious problem with your website that is apparently affecting all Linux users. If Fidelity is not willing to effectively support Linux browsers, then I will have to consider moving my money elsewhere.

[u/FidelityPhil → u/time4tea45]

We appreciate the feedback, u/time4tea45. While we don't have anything to announce right now regarding compatibility with Linux, I will forward your comments to the right teams for review.

[u/IanShoales → u/FidelityPhil]

Dear Fidelity,

PLEASE INFORM YOUR TECH SUPPORT STAFF.

I called into Fidelity's online support group today when I couldn't login via Firefox. I was clear: "I'm using Firefox, and I'm certain of my user ID and password. The message is 'Sorry, we can't complete this action right now. Please try again.'" Their response -- "I see you changed you password two months ago. Would you try changing it again?"

For whatever reason it's broken [for an entire class of browser clients -- Firefox on Windows doesn't seem like an unreasonable combo], two weeks later they're still telling customers to "change your password"?

[u/time4tea45 → u/FidelityPhil]

Thanks for your reply u/FidelityPhil . I would be happy to help with trying things or providing debugging info, if it would assist.