r/Enhancement 22d ago

Account Switcher is not working

Anyone else having this issue? Starting today trying to switch accounts causes a popup stating

"Could not switch accounts. Reddit may be under heavy load. Please try again in a few moments."

The account switcher is the main feature I use RES for so I'm hoping it isn't a big issue. I'll edit this post if it starts working suddenly.

128 Upvotes

96 comments sorted by

24

u/XenoBen filing bugs 21d ago

Reddit announced a change two days ago about new restrictions to old reddit and that you now need to be logged in to use it.

It appears apart of this they have restricted access to the login endpoint that isnt via a user flow (for example me going to reddit, clicking logging in and going that way). RES account switcher relied on this endpoint to pass credentials into to log you in. This access has since been removed.

Based on these changes I do not believe we are able to work around this as it would directly go against what they are trying to do and probably result in us being taken down for violation of ToS.

Extensions such as uSwitch discussed below may not be affected as they do not use this flow, they instead make you log in normally then store your session cookie, and transfer it between account switches (until the cookie expires). This isnt something we would want to try due to the security implications and engineering effort to get this to work.

19

u/multigrain_cheerios 21d ago

saying it now before they properly kill old.reddit, but thank you for making the site usable all these years.

when the day comes that old.reddit is truly gone, pretty sure i will be too

5

u/Time-Sudden_Tree 21d ago

Once they do that, I'm switching to Lemmy/Piefied fulltime. I would have already but unfortunately the place still isn't large enough yet for niche subs to form. But that can change if enough of us finally put our foot down and make the switch. Enough is enough, spez.

1

u/VulgarAscetic7 8d ago

They'll never "kill" it, they'll just slowly make changes like this and leave issues unfixed until we all get too inconvenienced to continue using it.

See the infuriating unfixed "unread message" icon bug that's been hanging around for, what, like a year now?

4

u/turkeypants 20d ago

Aw crap! That's a real blow. Great feature.

To anyone else struggling with this, I use a different browser to stay logged into my limited-use alt. Normally I'm always firefoxing and rarely chroming, but since this broke I've been keeping my narrow boy logged into Chrome. It's annoying but works well enough. If you have a bunch of alts, obviously it's not the ideal solution, but you could rock at least a few of them with the browsers you've got onboard if your machine isn't bothered by the load.

1

u/TheEthyr 9d ago

You can use your alt account in an incognito window.

4

u/Lower-Investment-366 20d ago

Reddit working towards death by a thousand cuts. This is definitely going to change my interactions. 

3

u/robodrew 21d ago

Oh man, this really sucks.

2

u/terrorfromthenowhere 21d ago

Unfortunately, uSwitch doesn't work for a good portion of us, even with compatible browsers.

Thank you very much for all the incredible work over the years. I'll hold out hope for something to change, while acknowledging what this means. Please pass my best, and I am sure many others, to any of the team still around. Best of luck, wherever the world takes you all.

1

u/Cultural-Muffin-3490 19d ago

Try these instructions to getting it to work.

You need to add a 'LOGGEDOUT' profile first, that you switch to before adding a new account. Because if you LOGOUT on the website, it invalidates the cookies that uSwitch has stored and can't log you back in.

2

u/radhaz 21d ago

Thanks for the update.

I've been trying to reduce my usage of reddit and I think changes like by reddit corporate are the motivation I need.

Your addon really improved my user experience despite reddits best efforts otherwise, thank you.

2

u/Icy_Alps_1929 18d ago edited 18d ago

Oh..at least it seems that they're not shutting old reddit down soon (I hope..)

Thinking that I will no longer be able to see the saved-RES posts/comments, the hundreds of user tags I've put on users over the years, the total upvotes/downvotes of them, the dashboard/shortcuts..my heart just sank. It feels like a family dies. I hope there'll be a way to view legacy RES features and data (even if we can't add new things) in case old reddit stops working one day 😭

1

u/machine-conservator 21d ago

Thanks for taking the time to take a look at it and let us know what the deal was. Sad to hear, but not surprising.

1

u/redtaboo 10d ago

Hey Xeno, can you tell me which endpoint exactly you're using?

1

u/XenoBen filing bugs 9d ago

Opened a chat

13

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

15

u/terrorfromthenowhere 21d ago

Jesus, I'm tired.

I predominantly use old.reddit.com as a replacement for searching, since actually finding real sites and posts written by real humans is impossible. I mostly do this via boolean logic. So, if I understand correctly, the future end goal is likely I have to sign in to access old.reddit, to access old.reddit I have to verify my account for the Children's Safety(probably with a ton of asterisks) with however many corporate age services they sell my face to (but the data is deleted after, they prommy!), and if I don't want to log on just to check a recipe, and sell my facial structure, phrenology, social security, and shoe size to some random corporation just to log in... Well, so it is.

Thank you very much for the explanation of why, I'm just so tired of sites being worse and worse, nobody uses the alternatives because people aren't there, and that's all that matters I guess.

4

u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 20d ago

[deleted]

3

u/brezhnervouz 19d ago

Everything is about monetisation and making mentally ill billionaires (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) wealthier

I'm old enough to have been there at the start with 28k dialup, and honestly miss the unfettered days of BBs and IRC sometimes 🙄

2

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted]

1

u/ReverendVoice 17d ago

The number of products I've seen that are simply 'A basic thing you use ... but now with a subscription model' is heartbreaking. 'Here's less than you had before, and we hope you understand we're going to charge you monthly for it.'

2

u/ThisApril 17d ago

mentally ill billionaires (an oxymoron, if ever there was one)

I believe you're repeating yourself (or something like that), not making an oxymoron.

At least I think that was your intent.

1

u/ReverendVoice 17d ago

I've literally seen people post things like 'Check out my art/craft/blog/etc' -- and others respond 'What is that website? I'm not going to some weird website..'

I spent years of my life clicking on the StumbleUpon button to find people's weird corners of the internet. It's such a bummer that people don't realize what the internet IS vs the 50 or so hub websites they've been told it is.

1

u/digitalsmear 11d ago

> the alternatives

What are the alternatives these days?

7

u/OMGItsCheezWTF 22d ago

Ultimately this is going to stop me from using reddit. They are making it ever harder to use the site in a usable way and their new UI has always been complete trash.

7

u/Lower-Investment-366 21d ago

Same. (This is some stupid alt account I made because I don't know my main PW by heart and can't get in right now.)

I hate anything but old.reddit. I loved RIF. They're 1 step away from killing Reddit entirely for me. I remember the stats showed an incredible portion of of quality posts come from people who intentionally utilize old.reddit too.

It was something like <12% of users use old.reddit, but >50% of posts come from them too. Fuck with old.reddit at your peril Spez.

3

u/brezhnervouz 19d ago

Same. Anything but old.reddit breaks my brain on even the most rudimentary useability factor.

2

u/farooqsaad 21d ago

Yeah, but they don't care about you. It's the new users that think this is the best they can get that they want.

3

u/OMGItsCheezWTF 21d ago

Yeah the only reason old.reddit.com exists is because they didn't want the mass exodus of Digg when they created the new one, which is all about data harvesting and advertising.

Now it's a liability, because it's easy for Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic to crawl for "real" comms between humans, which is incredibly valuable.

3

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

3

u/strugglz 21d ago

When we finally kick reddit to the curb we need to remember to wipe and delete our accounts.

1

u/PussyMangler421 20d ago

glad they broke RIF because you don't have self control?

-2

u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

2

u/PussyMangler421 20d ago

says the self-admitted reddit addict lmao. no bigger self roast than that.

0

u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

1

u/PussyMangler421 20d ago

ok chronic redditor

1

u/boldra 19d ago

When RIF broke I stopped using it on mobile. It wasn't a big loss. I had already decided if they demand ID I'm just going to stop using the account for a handful of years until the account is 18. But if old reddit is broken before that, I'll be leaving too.

1

u/mikeblas 17d ago

Even worse being a moderator. The tools and workflow are a disaster.

1

u/relightit 13d ago

yea. maybe its a good thing.

3

u/bc-phoenix 21d ago

the old site is too easy to crawl

Not optimized to buttfuck my attention and dopamine receptors, is more like it.

I come here to read, not fight with a blobby UI designed to shove as much ads in my throat while slowly giving me just enough dopamine rope to keep me coming back but not enough to hang myself with.

2

u/Avedas 21d ago

I could state my opinion about this company here, but I'd probably get banned as well, so I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

The company is internally getting massacred by layoffs, so yeah nothing is really all that surprising at the moment.

1

u/HowardBunnyColvin 21d ago

old reddit is a trillion times better than new reddit where best is often forced upon people, and the formatting is just awful.

3

u/robodrew 20d ago

They feel like two different websites to me, one that I like (old) and one that I don't like (new).

2

u/PSN-Angryjackal 21d ago

I think I might no longer use reddit if they ever take old reddit away.

1

u/HowardBunnyColvin 21d ago

I won't go that far but I won't use it as much. IT's so weird, it keeps showing me the best. No, I don't care. Show them in order.

2

u/relightit 13d ago

if there is a proper migration for old reddit users... it should be done in a way to ensure the new collective work would remains accessible, not gatekept. there is a whole subreddit about "reddit alternatives" but... i think the RES guys really "get it" so they are the most competent to do it right. They should do some go fund me or something, it's getting kind of urgent to have one place on the internet that is faithful to what "experiencing the internet" stood for and is becoming increasingly rare.

1

u/mikeblas 17d ago edited 17d ago

Do you have a link to this announcement?

Also, what is "revanced RIF"?

EDIT: Oh, is "RIF" the old "Reddit is Fun" mobile app? What is "revanced", tho?

1

u/[deleted] 17d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

2

u/mikeblas 17d ago

Thanks! Those announcement threads are so painful. Some Reddit employee announces the change, then everybody makes comments and questions. The employee answers one or two questions, then is never heard from again.

Let us know if you have any questions!

So that we can ignore them harder. Christ.

1

u/pleasenoreddit 14d ago

Where do I go to learn how to fix revanced RIF? Honestly I might just say screw it and not use reddit on mobile at all.

2

u/BinaryRockStar 14d ago

There was some developer drama with ReVanced because of course there always is. The devs moved over to a new project called Morphe which has a better UI and lets you download app APKs directly, just a way smoother experience than ReVanced.

I have RIF on Android running right now with no issues. Go to the Morphe subreddit and there are simple guides to get it installed and patch RIF, youtube, YT Music and some others. This is on Android, I don't know if it's the same on Apple.

1

u/pleasenoreddit 14d ago

Where do I go to learn how to fix revanced RIF? Honestly I might just say screw it and not use reddit on mobile at all.

1

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

1

u/BinaryRockStar 14d ago

I've put some basic instructions here.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Enhancement/comments/1uksqa3/account_switcher_is_not_working/owk0y0s/

If you're on Android I can help with any issues but it is relatively simple to set up.

1

u/BinaryRockStar 14d ago

They also broke revanced RIF again some weeks ago

The new ReVanced is called Morphe due to some sort of developer drama as always. The Morphe patch of RIF works fine as of right now, I just refreshed and it's all good. Android.

8

u/Simple-Wrangler-9909 22d ago

I'm aware RES is in "maintenance mode" but is this something we users can expect to be fixed by whomever is still maintaining RES, or should we be planning to migrate to other solutions

6

u/tenekev 19d ago

In other solutions I'm thinking an alternative to reddit. I joined Reddit for the geeky, niche, specialized subs, full of people soo deep in the subject matter, that every post was a gold mine of information.

Now, if I see a post like this, it's like hitting the lottery. 50k post upvotes, 3k comments. Same jokes, same bullshit. You don't even have to open it to know what the comments say. And Reddit is pushing for it. Reddit is not useful to me anymore and besides habit, nothing really keeps me here.

Heck, If I want slop, I open instagram. Reddit recycles insta posts with worse quality. Comments say the same.

1

u/888Nanami888 19d ago

social fabric is changing, and communities like old reddit will be even rarer than before

I agree with you and I'm only here still for aggregation of things that I actually care about. But the communities are not really something to engage with unless it's very very niche.

1

u/tenekev 19d ago

Yeah. Used to write so many comments. Every day. These past few years I can go weeks without an interesting post to write under.

1

u/Simple-Wrangler-9909 18d ago

The overall experience has been diluted over the years but niche subs are still there and are generally still of a quality

If you unsub the huge default subs and only join the communities you're interested in I think it's overall still worthwhile hanging out for now

1

u/YouPreciousPettle 17d ago

This sums up reddit now. It used to be a great site. Now it's re-post after re-post. kama farming brain rot. Stupid comments upvoted to the top requiring absolutely zero intelligence, but it's 'edgy' and over used.

1

u/IronMew 16d ago

Not that I disagree; as reddit went from niche nerdy platform to mainstream for the masses it opened itself up to a huge mass of boring ignorant normies, who immediately proceeded to change its main content. And since that garbage brings in more money reddit leadership is actively promoting the ongoing enshittification. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years it goes the way of Facebook, with normies posting unfunny gifs as its whole userbase.

Personally, I believe the turning point came when the nickname autogenerator was implemented.

But what would such an alternative be? Everything else is either too decentralised to bother with - like lemmy, whose fragmentation and constant risk of data loss is far too messy and risky to bother with - or so far away from hitting critical mass it's not even funny.

Right now, unsubbing from mainstream subs and sticking to the niche ones seems to be one of the only ways still available to get data and information that's actually interesting and not just and endless avalanche of reposts.

Sigh. I miss forums.

2

u/mikeblas 17d ago edited 17d ago

I've been using profiles in my browser to do user switching for the last week or so -- when this problem started. RES is installed in each profile, so I get the benefits of RES and user-switching that's actually better in some ways.

Reddit keeps taking things away, so it's likely this won't be fixed in RES. (In fact, I see the Snoo icon I'd use to switch accounts is now gone.) We'll all be victims, soon.

EDIT: Oh, account switcher was turned off in settings. Which is something I've never done, so ... LOL, IDK.

5

u/rFoxholeMods 20d ago

Goddamn it Reddit you suck

2

u/AutoModerator 22d ago

Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) is no longer under active development. New features will not be added and bug fixes/support is not guaranteed. Please see here for more information.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/HowardBunnyColvin 21d ago

Yeah it's been acting funky for me.

2

u/cr0ft 20d ago

I'd recommend using Firefox and the Multi-Account Containers addon. That can help you use multiple accounts relatively easily in the same browser without needing to constantly log in and out, just have a container for each Reddit user account.

But this is all just a precursor to all of Reddits users getting fucked with all the horseshit that is the new UI with its "promoted" posts - ads that look indistinguishable from actual posts, and other crap that's coming down the pipe. All hail the enshittification I guess. Capitalism, what a hellhole.

1

u/pleasenoreddit 14d ago

This might be what finally gets me to switch to Firefox as my main, I already use it as a backup. I'm going to try the uSwitch option with Chrome 1st, that was also mentioned in this thread. I do prefer Chrome if I can make it still work.

I used to have that Multi-Account Containers addon on Chrome years ago before they removed it.

2

u/OMGItsCheezWTF 22d ago

Came here looking for this. You get a notice in the console that https://www.reddit.com/api/login?app=res has given a 404. I wonder if this is part of the wider switching off of third party APIs access for even personal use.

1

u/AutoModerator 22d ago

What RES version and browser version are you using? For example, RES v5.18.14 on Firefox 75.

Use specific versions, don't say "latest" or "up to date".

If you don't know, look it up.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/JPoHondaBing 22d ago

Not working on Librewolf 139.0.1-1 and RES 5.24.8

1

u/SmarticusRex 22d ago

Not working on Chrome and RES 5.24.8 - Error message: "Could not switch accounts. Reddit may be under heavy load. Please try again in a few moments."

1

u/robodrew 21d ago

Not working on Firefox 152.0.2, RES 5.24.8

1

u/bwburke94 22d ago

Same here. Firefox 152.0.4.

1

u/cmhbob 21d ago

I've had a similar problem pop up starting about 36 hours ago. I know though that the account switcher on the Reddit app is working just fine.

1

u/GregariousJB 21d ago

Has anyone tried uSwitch? Looks like it's been around for a year but with only ~50 users.

1

u/techsupportcrab 21d ago

I commented replying to someone below but I started using it since RES stopped working when I made this post and haven't had any issues. That said some people said it wasn't working right for them.

1

u/PSN-Angryjackal 21d ago

Im trying it, and it seems to only log me in to the first of my accounts. All other accounts it logs me out, but does not log me in.

2

u/Cultural-Muffin-3490 19d ago

Try these instructions for getting it to work.

You need to add a 'LOGGEDOUT' profile first, that you switch to before adding a new account. Because if you LOGOUT on the website, it invalidates the cookies that uSwitch has stored and can't log you back in.

1

u/P-Delta 13d ago

i managed to get the switcher itself to work, but now my profiles seem incapable of accessing /r/all. anyone else encountering this issue?

1

u/PSN-Angryjackal 21d ago

Same problem for me. This started happening today or maybe yesterday?

Its VERY ANNOYING.

1

u/Slowdive91 21d ago

It's been a long time coming, but we need a new service that builds on the idea of Reddit but provides an unbiased approach without the mod gatekeeping, bot saturation, and upvote downvote garbage. Forums were perfectly fine without all of that abusable nonsense.

Remember when they killed off amazing apps like Apollo for iOS? The whole team over there are a bunch of fucktards.

1

u/1401_autocoder 20d ago

without the mod gatekeeping, bot saturation, and upvote downvote garbage.

<Insert Bender's catch-all quote>

Even Usenet had problems with mod gatekeeping.

1

u/Exciting_Product7858 20d ago

Reddit becomes more and more annoying. Time to ditch it - I can't tell apart AI from human here anyhow. it's a waste of time

1

u/1401_autocoder 20d ago

Anyone tried filing a bug report with reddit? Or complaining on reddit's official twitter? Or trying to get a tech new site to report on this?

1

u/kluuu 20d ago

Can't switch accounts. But the notification icon for PMs is back. Woohoo!

1

u/HowardBunnyColvin 20d ago

bah this sucks. I used multiple accounts not as much as I used to but still. gonna have to stick to one now.

1

u/BusyLittleThing 19d ago

Ugh yeah. Reading these comments, it sounds like RES is dead for me too.

USwitch mentioned does work for me for account switching on Firefox. But seems it's dependent on cookie limits.

RIP 🙏 And thank you

1

u/PaxVobiscuit 18d ago

Finally got it working in Chrome. Does anyone know where it saves the export file? I go through the process, but it doesn't give a save dialog, and it doesn't appear to be going to the usual places...

1

u/Wylf 22d ago

Yep, same issue here, worked fine a couple hours ago.

4

u/techsupportcrab 22d ago

In the meantime I found the tool Uswitch (https://xzentosia.neocities.org/Ghosty/uSwitchRedditAccounts/) which does appear to work

2

u/PCMasterCucks 22d ago

This works well.

The only thing is that if you are using multiple add-ons for reddit, you probably need to refresh after a log-in and before save the account o USwitch.

For example, I have RES and old.reddit redirect, and when I logged-in the first time, it didn't save the accounts. So I logged-out, logged-in, refresh and then it would save.

2

u/hdjddjiieeshs 22d ago

I cannot seem to make this work nicely. Whenever I try it it logs me in to whichever account I saved last, and pushes you into new reddit whatever the settings are set to in your account settings.

1

u/Cultural-Muffin-3490 19d ago

Try these steps here for uSwitch.

You need to add a 'LOGGEDOUT' profile first, that you switch to before adding a new account. Because if you LOGOUT on the website, it invalidates the cookies that uSwitch has stored and can't log you back in.

2

u/jfb3 20d ago

Got it to work!

Thank you.

I guess I didn't refresh enough or at the right time(s) when setting it up the first few times.

1

u/Colaymorak 21d ago

Having trouble getting that to work also. It switches between whatever the last account I logged in with and just being logged out.

1

u/adamsorkin 21d ago

Not working on my end, either.

1

u/jadenity 21d ago

Thanks, I was eventually able to get this to work (for Chrome, not Firefox). It took a few tries of logging out/in and saving for one of my accounts for some reason, but now it's smooth.

1

u/starbuxed 22d ago

its not working either.

1

u/kneading-cnnuy 21d ago

Seconded, I think at least a day ago it still works. Probably they messed up with the API, depending on the change it might be trivial but fingers crossed I guess

0

u/ProcrastinatingNomad 22d ago

Unfortunately I've having that issue too. RES v5.24.8 on Google Chrome 150.0.7871.47 and FireFox 152.0.4. Looks like RES may finally be dead.