Endless HTTP auth attempts without 5xx error? [was: Basic HTTP auth prompting too many times]

[E.B.]

Sorry I guess I meant 401 instead of 5xx? Well, same question tho.

--------------------------------------------
 
 by the way, i changed to
 nginx basic_auth and when I enter
 wrong
 credentials, it allows me endless tries.  i'm was
 used
 to apache gives a 5xx page after three
 bad tries.  i guess you
 could refresh that
 and try again in apache too, but endless
 tries without a error for nginx?  is there a
 way to change this?
  
  >  I
 have set up HTTP auth using the auth_pam module (although
 >  I'm not sure that module is the
 problem - it might be nginx
 > 
 problem).
 >  
 >  https://github.com/stogh/ngx_http_auth_pam_module/
 >  
 >  All works great
 for a while----
 >  
 >  After some time, browsers begin to
 prompt for authentication
 >  over
 >  and over again (I guess once for every
 image, stylesheet,
 >  script, etc?).
 >  Or maybe it is prompting because the
 credentials failed, but
 >  I
 don't
 >  think so because if I hit
 cancel/ESC over and over again, I
 >  can
 use
 >  the web page (I'm still
 authenticated), but none of the
 > 
 images or
 >  scripts have loaded.
 >  
 >  The logs
 don't show any indication of what caused the
 >  prompts to
 >  start
 showing. Previously, I saw this error (in nginx's
 >  error log)
 > 
 associated with the situation:
 >  
 >  Can't initialize threads: error
 11
 >  
 >  This looks
 a little like a MySQL error (I use pam_mysql
 >  behind
 > 
 auth_pam).I don't know if there is some bad code in
 >  auth_pam
 >  causing
 this(?). Restarting nginx fixed the prompting in
 >  this case.
 >  
 >  However, today, the prompting started
 again and the above
 >  error
 >  does NOT appear. I don't see any
 errors. Browser doesn't
 >  matter
 -
 >  tried it on firefox, mobile,
 whatever.
 >  
 >  I
 will try to test with just the built-in basic auth but
 >  that's not a long
 >  term solution for me, I need pam/mysql
 behind the auth (lot
 >  of virt
 >  users).