Accessing Developer Forums on Google Chrome?

I am having trouble accessing the Developer Forums on Google Chrome. Is there currently a requirement for accessing the forums on Safari? Thanks to anyone who has any information on how to resolve this!

The current message that shows on https://forums.developer.apple.com/welcome is:

Bad Message 431


reason: Request Header Fields Too Large

Post not yet marked as solved Up vote post of matthewa26 Down vote post of matthewa26
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DevForums should work with Google Chrome. I just ran a basic test myself and it seems fine. Specifically:
  1. I started with a fresh 10.15.4 (restored from a VM snapshot; I must get around to updating my VM to 10.15.5).

  2. I downloaded and installed the latest Google Chrome (83.0.4103.106).

  3. I started on the Apple Developer web site and clicked the Developer Forums link at the bottom.

  4. That took me to the main welcome page. I clicked the avatar icon at the top right and logged in with a personal Apple ID.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ DTS @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

WWDC runs Mon, 22 Jun through to Fri, 26 Jun. During that time all of DTS will be busy with conference duties.

I'm still having this problem. It's probably been a month. Going to this very page in chrome gives me the error mentioned above.

Is there some workaround to access dev forums on Chrome? I do everything else in Chrome (including App Store connect, credentials/provisioning, etc)

  • Try clearing your browser history/apple cookies.

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I opened https://forums.developer.apple.com/welcome in Chrome without problem.

  • MacOS 11.6
  • Chrome Version 94.0.4606.71 (Build officiel) (x86_64)

I repeated my test from earlier (although on updated version, namely macOS 11.6 running Google Chrome 94.0.4606.71) and it continued to work. I don’t think this is a wide ranging problem, so I recommend that you see if you can isolate the cause via standard user-level techniques (private browsing mode, clear your caches, create a new user on your Mac and try there, try on a different Mac, try on a fresh VM, and so on).

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

This is happening even with Monterey macOS 12.0.1 on a 16" MBP. So this is a wide-ranging problem. Only Safari works for reading forum messages.

So this is a wide-ranging problem

It does not seem so. I just opened several posts in Chrome (Version 96.0.4664.110 (Build officiel) (x86_64)). No issue (MacOS 11.6.1).

Which Chrome version do you use ?

I have this problem, is this ever going to be fixed? Is apple doing this to make people use Safari?

Test

is this ever going to be fixed?

Unfortunately this problem is hard to reproduce. While it hits folks every now and again, Chrome works just fine in general (and it’s not just for Apple folks; Claude31’s most recent post indicates it’s working for non-Apple people as well). I just tried it again — using Chrome 97.0.4692.71 on a fresh macOS 12.0.1 VM logging in using a personal account — and I had no problems posting. Indeed, you can see my test post above.

So, whatever’s triggering this is environmental. It’s hard to file an actionable bug about such problems without a better understanding of the environmental factors in play. Things you might try:

  • Use a private browsing window to see if that changes things.

  • Disable any extensions you have installed.

  • Create a new user account on your Mac and try from there.

Once you have a better understanding of what triggers it, you can put that in a bug report against DevForums.

If you do file a bug, please post your bug number, just for the record.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

This problem has been happening for years now. It happens on Intel and M1, so it's not tied to hardware. There's something wrong with the forum software that generates the http response.

Seems like this is a client-side type error. Clearing all cookies on the browser was recommended online, and seems to have corrected the issue for now.

Two things:

  1. It is still happening on my MacBook Pro with Chrome (updated chrome, Monterey 12.4) - I note that the cookie header (in the request to developer.applet.com ) is 6308 bytes (!!) in length. I'm sure this is the immediate cause of the complaint being generated. When I use incognito mode, the error is not present.
  2. On Safari, the cookie header is 1324 bytes in length

I am a frequent user of apple products/services using multiple accounts. Maybe this is related?

I'm happy to help debug this issue @eskimo - I find it terribly annoying (to put it mildly).

I'm happy to help debug this issue

Thanks for the offer.

I see this issue myself, but only rarely. It doesn’t seem to be tied to Chrome (I never use Chrome). The vast majority of times that I do see it it’s not on DevForums but some other site that using Apple ID authentication. I suspect that’s the critical factor.

The next time you see it, quit and relaunch the browser. Does that clear it? [To be clear, that’s not a fix but rather a diagnostic test.]

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Yah, this happens every time I access developer.apple.com but only /forums -- I do appstoreconnect,the top level /account tools, etc all the time on chrome and never see this issue. It really seems scoped to /forums for me.

Doesn't matter if I restart Chrome.

I haven't cleared cookies - I'm sure that will make it work for a short period of time, and then the issue returns.

I have multiple profiles on Chrome but I really only ever use the one I am using now and see this problem.

Hey hey, this happened to me just now and I was able to capture a .har log of the problem. I’ve filed a bug (r. 95372728) and my hope is that the .har log will allow our DevForums platform folks to debug and fix the problem.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

I have been encountering this issue on Chrome on developer.apple.com and discussions.apple.com for at least a year. True to form, opening up the Developer Tools > Network, the request header was sending a massive amount of cookie data. I cleared only cookies from *.apple.com and was able to access the website again. Only apple.com can set and receive apple.com cookies, right?