Fine Uploader receives "Policy expired" message sent to S3 for some

Question

I recently implemented Fine Uploader, and it was mostly successful. However, some users cannot download. All of them use modern browsers (IE10, FF and Chrome). One allowed me to remotely access their machine, and I was able to try it in both Chrome and FF.

I got the same error on both:

[10:45:28.330] "[FineUploader 3.8.0] Received response status 403 with body: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <Error><Code>AccessDenied</Code><Message>Invalid according to Policy: Policy expired.</Message><RequestId>--removed--</RequestId><HostId>--removed--</HostId></Error>" 

Is this something with the time zone settings on their computer, where does it generate an invalid policy?

Answer 1

The time zone settings will not work because the time is UTC. However, if the time on the user's computer is inaccurate (say, turned off for 5 or more minutes), then the policy will expire, according to Amazon.

The exact bootloader sets the expiration date to 5 minutes (again, in UTC format). The date used is generated in the browser, so the time of your client computer will be used. If the machine clock is slow for 5 minutes or more, the policy will be considered expired when Amazon deals with it.

I am sure that the problem is associated with a significant drift on the clock of your computer. If you check this, I suggest you indicate that they synchronize the system clock with the time server.

Update . A new feature was added in Fine Uploader 5.5, which allows you to overcome the extreme drift of the clock on user machines / browsers. See the Drift Clock section of the S3 Features page for more information.