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AlexC-4833 avatar image
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AlexC-4833 asked GiuseppeCarafa-3011 answered

Multiple authentication prompts when signing into Visual Studio

Our company has software consultants and Managed Services people who are invited into multiple customer DevOps instances. When they log into Visual Studio, they are prompted with multiple authentication prompts (most also use MFA). Some people are active in 10+ different customer DevOps instances and need to log into Visual Studio on different computers. I believe the additional prompts are each coming from every tenant that they're a guest in as VS checks access to each one. It's very time consuming and annoying to have to authenticate so many times. Is there a way to specify before or at login which DevOps instance(s)/Azure AD to authenticate to?

I really wish Microsoft configured things such that we authenticate to our home tenant and then access to all other tenants was validated behind the scenes.

Thanks.

vs-setup
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AnnaXiu-MSFT avatar image
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AnnaXiu-MSFT answered AlexCarlock-2314 commented

Hi @AlexC-4833,

Which version of Visual Studio are you using?
If you are using VS2019, I suggest you update it to the latest version and check if the situation disappears.

Meanwhile, in order to reduce the reauthentication, you can try to enable “System web browser” under Tools > Options > Environment > Accounts > Add and reauthenticate accounts using: dropdown. Then, sign in your accounts again.
For more details, please view the document:
How to use Visual Studio with accounts that require multi-factor authentication

Sincerely,
Anna


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Unfortunately we're on VS 2017 and cannot upgrade since these machines are not managed by us. That option isn't available. In 2017 there's an option to "enable device code flow when adding or re-authenticating an account" but that made it worse. For every authentication instance, he then had to type in a code into the web browser and then approve notifications on the phone. There were fewer of them but he'd rather enter my password than multiple random codes.

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Hi @AlexC-4833, in order to meet security requirements, you may encounter the situation. Considering that you are using VS2017, you can try the following steps:
1. Close all instances of Visual Studio
2. Delete all files of %localappdata%\.Identityservice
3. Re-launch your Visual Studio and click on the Account settings in the upper-right
4. Sign in your account and click on “Check for an updated license”

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@AnnaXiu-MSFT This issue has occurred in the past with other versions of visual studio. For me it is occurring in visual studio 2019 and its so bad that when following your instructions a second web browser pops up to login before even the first login has finished! its over and over login, so bad that visual studio 2019 is not usable! Is there another known fix that actually works?

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The best our end users have come up with is to pay attention to the authentication screen, noting which customer is asking for authentication, and canceling the auth windows for the clients they're not currently interested in working on. It's not a great solution, but at least they're not going through the multi-step process of authenticating to many different customer accounts when they only need to access one.

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AlexC-4833 avatar image
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AlexC-4833 answered RickPiovesan-5213 edited

I'll ask our employees to try this. Given the environment setup, they don't always have access to update the version. I'll report back once I have more information.

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Same problem. Am on latest VS 16.11.7. I am a consultant and work with 1/2 dozen clients, all having AzDevOps project and repos. Starting last week or so, am now prompted multiple times per hour to login to various clients, over and over. Moving to VS 2022 is not an option, none of my clients have or plan to do so. This is time consuming, very frustrating and confusing. I don't know if I can continue using VS 2019 like this, any help would be appreciated.

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RogerSchmidt-0502 avatar image
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RogerSchmidt-0502 answered RogerSchmidt-0502 edited

The problem is that VS 2017 asks to authenticate for all tenants, to which I am registered as guest, independent from any other conditions (DevOps etc.). This is really annoying, especially because in some cases I don't even know to which tenant I am asked to authenticate - if no corporate logo has been configured for Microsoft 365 logon. And it just doesn't make sense to authenticate for all - I know, logon prompts can be clicked away, but still. I guess the developers of VS don't have guest accounts in other tenants, and/or they don't work with VS as IDE for their daily work, otherwise they would implement a better solution very soon...

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GiuseppeCarafa-3011 avatar image
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GiuseppeCarafa-3011 answered

Seriously guys what a pain in the proverbial this is. Every two weeks I get told that my credentials need to be re-entered. I log in and I have to confirm through Microsof Authenticator. It prompts me again and it sends me a text. And it prompts me again and I have to confirm AGAIN through Microsoft Authenticator. This is such an annoyance, sort it the bleep out. PLEASE

Oh yeah, I'm on the most recent build of Visual Studio 2022

There's no excuse for this nonsense.

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