If you’re having troubles registering to judge a GBA event, please be sure to log into the GBA website first! You can do this by selecting Member Services >> Member Profile.
If you’re already logged in, you’ll see your Member Profile. Scroll down, select Log Out, and then log back in.
After logging in, click the name of the event instead of using the Judge Registration button in the first screen. This will take you to a page with all the details for that event. You’ll see a Judge Registration button in that screen just below the event information on the left side.
If you continue to have issues, you can always contact one of the Reps listed in the Event information to let them know you want to judge the event. Refer to the GBA Contact page for email addresses or phone numbers.
What is a CSRF error?
CSRF stands for Cross Site Request Forgery, which essentially means that you were trying to access a site, or a section of a site, that requires authentication, and for some reason that site is rejecting your security token, or is not allowing you to create a security token. A security token is most often a “cookie”, which is a small file stored on your system the website uses for various tasks. One of those tasks is authentication, and if the site is not able to create/retrieve the cookie, you can get this error.
Why do I get a CSRF error?
The GBA uses two different systems to create the website. One of those is Wild Apricot, which is the site that handles all membership and event matters. The other is BlueHost, which is our web server that shows you all the pages when you navigate to the GBA site. Like many others on the web, the GBA uses WordPress to create the website. In that WordPress site, we embed code that calls “widgets” from the Wild Apricot site. Those widgets allow us to pull information from the Wild Apricot site, like Event information, Member information, etc. Most of those widgets require authentication which is provided in the form of a security token (or “cookie”). You get this security token when you log into the GBA system. When you receive a CSRF error, this essentially means that your security token is invalid, malformed, or missing.
Changes in either site’s security requirements can cause this type of error and it can be difficult to resolve when working with two different platforms. This error can also be caused by security measures you’ve set in your browsers, ad blocking plugins, malware/security software, or by malware infections in your browser. It can also be caused by updates to your browser that may reset or add to security measures in those browsers.
CSRF errors can also be caused by issues with the host configuration, such as if one of our systems is doing maintenance, or has an issue that needs to be resolved. We work with our site hosts closely, but have not control over when or how those issues are fixed.
Fixing the CSRF error
There are several ways you can try to fix a CSRF error.
- Make sure you’re logged into the GBA system before trying to sign up!
- Make sure you’re not logged in on different browsers, or in different sessions/tabs in your browser.
- Use a Private or Incognito session. These types of sessions typically bypass many of issues that can cause a CSRF error. To use a Private or Incognito session, search for “private browsing with <name of your browser>”, and follow the instructions you find there.
- Add the two GBA domains (bbqga.com and bbqga.org) to the Trusted Locations/Sites section of your browser. You can find out more about Trusted Locations by searching on “trusted locations <name of your browser>”.
- Try a different browser. Chrome seems to work best with the GBA site.
- If you’re logged in, log out of the GBA site, close down the tab or session, then open a new tab/session to the GBA site and log back in. Click Member Services >> Member Profile and scroll down to the bottom to log out.
- Restart your browser.
- Restart your machine.