Debugging 502 - Bad Gateway OR How to not get locked out of iCloud account if you use Linux?
I think I spotted a bug in iCloud and I’m writing this post to summarize an unexpected and amusing experience I had discovering and debugging it.
Context
I’ve been applying for jobs the last few months and on a friend’s suggestion I decided to prepare my resume in iCloud - Pages. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to create an account considering I use no Apple devices but to my pleasant surprise I was able to.
My experience using Pages was smooth and I decided to stick to it.
I however made the mistake of having only Pdf copies of my resume on my machine and assumed if I needed to make edits, I could always access them online.
Also while logging into the iCloud account, Firefox did not offer the prompt to remember the password and so I’ve had to reset passwords a couple of times when I can’t recall.
Problem
I was in conversation with a lead for a freelance project and they asked me to send across my resume. Since I had to make a few edits I needed access to the iCloud account.
I had forgot my password and unfortunately this time around the ‘Reset Password’ link returned a ‘502 - Bad Gateway’ error. I assumed there must be some fault on the server side and given that it’s an Apple service things would be up and running in no time.
I used Libre to open the pdf document and after a tedious hour had edited the resume to send it across. The grind of editing a Pdf on Libre office helped embed that I should have kept a copy on my machine.
Debugging
I had hoped the ‘502 - Bad Gateway’ would disappear in a few days I would reset my password and be on my merry way. I checked again in about a week and then again a week later only to receive the same error. I considered there might be a problem at my end though I had no clue what it could be.
Is it just me or?
I had another friend try and reset the password from his computer and he received the same error.
This was confusing because I’m in India and he’s in Europe and I thought if Apple’s password reset service was malfunctioning at this scale they’d certainly be working on it.
I checked the service on https://www.isitdownrightnow.com which displayed the Password reset service as reachable.
Can Customer Support help?
I then contacted Apple Support and the support person asked me if I could share my screen. She directed me to this page ‘https://ara-prn.apple.com/’ which says ‘Supported operating systems are macOS 10.6 and later or Windows 7 and later’
Since I use Ubuntu, I could not share my screen. I asked the support person to check if they were able to access https://iforgot.apple.com which returned 502 - Bad Gateway for me. She confirmed that she was able to access and I decided to have another friend try out the Password reset screen, only this time the friend uses a Mac and not Linux.
Let’s Try and Error
I thanked the support person for her help and dialled up my friend, who uses a Mac, and was able to access the Password reset page.
I figured I’d reset my password using his Mac and move on. I was however curious to understand how the OS on my machine results in a ‘502 - Bad Gateway’ error for an HTTP request.
Can the client’s OS cause a ‘502 - Bad Gateway’ error?
For no convincing reason I resent the request after removing the User-Agent as Linux and I was able to access the ‘Reset Password’ page for iCloud.
Conclusion
For a while I was upset about the episode, having to solve a puzzle to use a critical service such as resetting a password, but I can’t help being amused right now.
I guess I just never expected such an experience to result from an Apple Product and I can’t figure out how doing this helps them in any way. I hope it’s a bug and not an intentional design.
For myself I hope I remember to keep an editable copy of my resume on my machine because I haven’t yet :D