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Stop making me click "Log in" every day
matas_lauzadis197
Member Posts: 2 ✭
My feature request is in the title.
There's been a number of feature requests asking Onshape to preserve sign-in status rather than making users fill their credentials and click "Log in" every day:
- https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/8916/every-time-i-visit-the-onshape-website-i-need-to-log-in-again-is-there-a-remember-me-option
- https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/7784/stay-signed-in
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Onshape/comments/1ge0s63/why_does_onshape_log_users_out_so_aggressively/
- https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/13653/login-and-refresh-repeats-are-excessive-can-you-double-the-time-to-stay-in-loged-and-refreshed
It's clearly a pain point. What is the business decision behind logging users out so often? This is User Retention 101, if you want users to stick around, why log them out? Can you point out any other core workflow tools which do sign-outs as aggressively as Onshape?
Assuming most of your users are on the Free Plan, their designs are open-source, the argument for aggressively signing people out "for security" is moot.
Please stop making me click "Log in". I love your product, but this is silly.
CC @john_rousseau who seems to be behind this decision.
Comments
You’re right, a high percentage of users are on the free plan, but for those who are not, security is important.
@NeilCooke could you go deeper into the motivation for this policy? I love that OnShape takes security seriously, I really do! But execution of this security policy seems out of alignment with other major institutions who also take security seriously. My work and home email providers— probably my most sensitive web logins— do not log users out every few hours. Nor does my password manager, which has all the keys to my life, including my properly entropic OnShape password.
Since OnShape already meets the gold standard by providing 2FA for those who decide they want heightened security, would it not be reasonable to make this auto-logout configurable? That way, who see value in being aggressively signed-out can still have that as an option.
I agree that making the logout timeframe configurable is a better option than the current situation, which mostly just wastes time.
I know everyone has their own gripes with any product ever made, but IMO, this one is a strange one.
Compared to every other CAD software I ever used, getting to a point where you can actually "model" in OS is significantly quicker.
Also as mentioned in other threads by OS staff, OS has to rent compute time from AWS. If users are logged in forever, it wastes money.
Speaking as a free plan user, I don't mind the time spent re-logging in nearly as much as I appreciate the availability of the free plan. My paid license of Alibre Pro takes much longer to start up than Onshape takes to log in.
I don’t think folks are saying this is a major issue—just offering feedback about a small but recurring annoyance that they don’t feel empowered to address. It’s like spotting a typo on a webpage: minor, sure, but it impacts everyone who sees it, and the fix is perceived as easy. That importance makes it feel worth raising, even if it’s not urgent.
At the heart of it, perception is reality for users. So rather than downplaying their experience, it’s important to acknowledge it. They’re not wrong—logging back in does take some amount of time and mental energy. We might disagree on how big a deal it is, and it’s totally valid for the devs to WONTFIX things when there are more pressing priorities or when the fix could introduce worse issues.
For what it’s worth, I use OnShape across enterprise, education, and free accounts. I love the platform and relentlessly recommend it, but I still find the auto-logout a bit of a friction point.
Providing more modern authentication methods would be nice and provide high security with connivance