We have a brand-new server running Windows Server 2012, IIS 8, and MS SQL 2014. We have tested the forums and our custom integration successfully on a windows 10 machine running the same version of MS SQL and IIS 10. We've performed the installation successfully with the stock forums on the new machine.

The forums will load, but when we try to log in, it appears to authorize the credentials, but then we are presented with the "you must login or register" message again. There are no errors in the event log, nor in the IIS application, nor in the IIS logs.

We downloaded the source code, applied our config files, and ran it in Visual Studio on it's built-in IIS Express, and the login functionality worked exactly as expected. We performed a fresh compile from this working code, published it to the new site, and we experience the same issue where authentication succeeds but reverts to logged out condition.

We have tried changing the redirect on login as per several posts found here, but to no avail - the results are the same. We are now at our wits' end. Please help.

Its important to use a Machine Key, you need to define that in the web.config. The passwords are decrypted with the machine key and when you move to a different Server the machine keys are different, unless you specify a machine key in the web.config.

We've generated a new machine key on the new server with the exact same results.. Is there any further information I may provide to assist in troubleshooting this issue? Thank you kindly for your assistance.

We've generated a new machine key on the new server with the exact same results.. Is there any further information I may provide to assist in troubleshooting this issue? Thank you kindly for your assistance.

No that can not work. You need the same key you use on the first server. If you need help let me know there exist one code example on StackOverflow on how to get the current machine key

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1755130/getting-the-current-asp-net-machine-key 

Sorry, I think we're misunderstanding each other.

The initial installation was on a Windows 10 box on a separate network. This is the dev environment.

The second installation, with which we are having the issue, is on a fresh Windows 2012 Server box, which is our production environment. We ran a build of the code with the same config files from the dev box and it worked fine. We were able to log in with the administrator account. When running the installed version on this same box, with the same config files, logging in doesn't work and generates no errors.

We attempted to use a new machine key as we thought was suggested in your last post and had the same result.

Login SEEMS to be successful but the cookie doesn't seem to be generated and the account doesn't seem to stay logged in.

Checking in again - I'm a little confused as to the reference to the machine key since the documentation in the web.config mentions it's used only in server farm capacity. Taking the machine key and such from the dev machine and adding it to the production web.config results in the same login failure with no error message.

Below is from original web.config:



And this is the machine key from the old server that we added at your advice:


The login fails the same way in either case with no messages in the event log or IIS log.

I am beginning to wonder if there is a difference between the IIS settings for each environment, but a quick run through of the IIS configs doesn't reveal any obvious discrepancies. Unless we are being obtuse about something you've already explained, we don't know where to go from here.

One quick question what happens when you register a new account, can you login next with that account? Also what happens when you use the forgot password option?

Thanks for the response. Yes, we tried to create a new account and it functions the same way as the original admin account - login appears to succeed then goes back to forum home with a 'log in or register' message, with no errors.

We don't currently have an SMTP server set up on the production site, so I'll set that up and see what happens.

Thanks for the response. Yes, we tried to create a new account and it functions the same way as the original admin account - login appears to succeed then goes back to forum home with a 'log in or register' message, with no errors.

We don't currently have an SMTP server set up on the production site, so I'll set that up and see what happens.

Ok if the new account also fails then the issue is not the machine key.

As you set in your first post it seems that the auth cookie is not correctly set. I assume you use for both servers the same web.config? At this point i really no have clue whats wrong. I remember that problem occured before but now i no can find the topic with the solution.

Upon further research, it does appear as though the cookie is being set. I found this in the advanced settings of Chrome, which allows me to view the contents of cookies. Perhaps the content is not correct.

Name: .YAFNET_Authentication
Content: 132D19F6CD8A9F36308F24AB60BEE9D403C75A01BB9E519611E4DF27AE9F51CD8A0C0A5B1FE058F91E8B7280B9C25B8805C0D7EC4D81C8C4083D4C134A4FA7C20FE3A7DC447F69378372F8F38629580834533442
Domain: localhost
Path: /
Send for: Any kind of connection
Accessible to script: No (HttpOnly)
Created: Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 1:24:40 PM
Expires: Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 1:24:40 PM

So, we found the issue. The Default Web Site, under which the forum is hosted and with which the forum login is integrated, has its own web.config for the baseline web application. We renamed this file and restarted IIS and bam, the login works.

We have the web.config for the baseline app set up differently on the dev machine and we didn't think to look at the local one since we were focusing so hard on the forum app. This is probably a good lesson in managing nested web applications, each with their own config files.

This thread  inspired the solution to this issue.