Zotero website logins getting throttled during classroom activity

troy.kozee
I'm teaching Zotero use as part of a classroom activity, and I'm finding our website logins are getting throttled/locked out. I imagine it's because we're behind a NAT.

What advice can you give for me? How many students can I log in at once? How long of an interval should I wait? While my class uses Windows, my students use Chromebooks for most of their school work, and Zotero's website (as opposed to the desktop app) is critical to that experience.

Thanks!
  • dstillman
    Multiple incorrect login attempts from the same IP address will get throttled, yes.

    If you email support@zotero.org with the external IP address in question and when this was happening, we can take a look at the access pattern and see if there's anything we can do here.

    We'll be rolling out 2FA support soon, and that may let us relax the throttling limits a bit by using automatic email-based verification as an alternative.
  • troy.kozee
    Ooof. Getting 20 high school freshmen to enter a password correctly on their first (or third) time... is a low probability event.

    I'll give it a go when school resumes on Tuesday. I'll send in a support email if we get throttled again. Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    Are you sure Zotero is the right tool for 9th graders? I'm all for introducing students to the research process early, but especially since students won't be able to take advantage of much of Zotero's most powerful features without Zotero installed, wouldn't it make more sense to orient them towards the (passwordless) ZoteroBib (https://zbib.org/ ) instead?
  • troy.kozee
    In terms of collecting, saving, and organizing sources, Zotero is just lightyears ahead of any other free tool I've found (though I'm happy to take suggestions :) ). That functionality alone is worth taking a few days, and the web connector doesn't need the desktop app to add sources to the library. The students also have access to several EBSCO products through our state.

    Citations and works cited is a little more of a mixed bag if you're stuck on Chromebook (and I do show them zbib), but in many students have access to a desktop PC at home.
  • marjochs
    I use it for high school as well. Entering the right password hasn't been an issue. They just use their same school credentials. We downloaded it onto all of our school chromebooks, so they get the full capability. It wasn't an issue of incorrect logins because I was trying to login for the first time in 2 weeks, and it wouldn't let me do it. Our school is college prep, and I love that they can just keep right on using this in college. But it certainly won't be helpful if they can't login!
  • dstillman
    @marjochs: That's a bit of a misunderstanding. We rate-limit logins by IP address, among other things, so if everyone in the classroom is behind a single external IP address (which is the case for you), it only takes one person repeatedly trying to log in with the wrong credentials to temporarily lock everyone out, even for the first attempt with the correct credentials.

    This is currently necessary to protect accounts but is obviously not ideal for a situation like yours. As I say above, we'll soon offer an alternative that will allow people to log in via email even if their IP address is rate-limited.
  • marjochs
    @dstillman: Is rate-limiting not an issue for university campuses as well?
    Do you know how about how long it will be until 2FA is implemented?
    I appreciate your help!
  • GordonFair
    Dear DStillman,

    We've been having the same issue. I was teaching Zotero and the first time with the whole class logging it at least one student kept trying to login incorrectly. This was at around 1 PM PST and a second class around 2 PM PST with our IP of 135.180.67.121

    We also had several students have locked out accounts because they never verified but now they can't use their email to register again. We are the domain stgabrielsf.com

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated. We hope to use Zotero next Wednesday also.
  • jowensbelvideresd
    Has there been any movement on this issue? I'm attempting to use this with my classes and am hitting the same problems. Thank you.
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