Summary

When users attempt to log in to Bamboo, the application experiences prolonged loading time preventing access.

Environment

All Bamboo versions using Crowd to manage users' accounts.

Diagnosis

Bamboo tries to authenticate the user from Crowd but the login page keeps loading and doesn't log in.  In the <BAMBOO_HOME>/logs/atlassian-bamboo.logs we can see the following message:

WARN [scheduler_Worker-7] [CrowdClientControl] Failed to refresh the user and group cache
com.atlassian.user.EntityException: com.atlassian.crowd.exception.ApplicationPermissionException: HTTP Status 403 ForbiddenType Status ReportMessage Client with address "<ip address>" is forbidden from making requests to the application, bamboo.Description The server understood the request but refuses to authorize it.

If logged in with a local user, you should be able to see a similar message by going to Bamboo Administration > Overview > Security > User directories, selecting the Crowd User directory, and clicking on the Test Settings button located at the bottom of the page.

Cause

A possible cause is related to an incorrect Bamboo IP address added to the Crowd application.

It's expected that Crowd allows connections from the same IP address configured to every application added and refuses to authorize/authenticate any different addresses. In this case, Bamboo is trying to get authorization from Crowd while users try to log in; however, since the user manager application refuses the IP address reaching out, the users experience the symptom of slowness.

Solution

1. Access the Crowd instance
2. Click on Applications > Bamboo application related
3. Go to Remote addresses
4. Remove the incorrect IP address by clicking on the Remove option
5. Add the correct Bamboo IP address