WiscWeb - WordPress UW Theme - 403 Error: Permission Required

The 403 error page message is an indicator of a few things that could be wrong. These include trying to login from off campus without being connected to VPN and trying to submit a form inside which you've copied and pasted in content.

403 Error Message in WiscWeb

The issue states "403 Error: Permission Required."

Issue

Users will see this error if one of three things occur:

  1. You are trying to login to WiscWeb from off campus or while connected to a non-campus network 
  2. You have copied and pasted content into a form and are trying to submit the form
  3. You are attempting to upload a file to your Media Library and the file has an "illegal character" in it such as an apostrophe. 

Resolution

I was trying to login...

If you are off campus or not connected to a campus network when you receive this error, it is an indicator that you need to connect through WiscVPN. If you already have this installed on your computer, simply login and then try accessing WiscWeb. If you do not have the campus VPN installed on your computer, please download and connect:

  1. Download WiscVPN (aka Global Protect client from Palo Alto)
  2. When connecting, make sure to set the portal to uwmadison.vpn.wisc.edu

I was submitting a form...

If you received the error after submitting a form, the issue might be that you were copying and pasting in content from another source (i.e., Microsoft Word) into your form. A short term resolution would be to retype the information directly into the form or pass it through a plain text editor (e.g., TextEdit or Notepad). If that doesn't work, please contact our team and we can make sure that your submission goes through. Please include your name, contact information, and the link to the form you were trying to fill out.

I was uploading a file to the Media Library...

If you were attempting to upload a file to the Media Library when this happened, the issue is likely that there is an "illegal character" in the file name. If your file name contains special characters (e.g. %&@#$'), please remove them and save the file under a new name. Then, try re-uploading.  

Tips

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