Saint's Log

Wierd Error About Stale Visual Studio Account

I was trying to use Visual Studio recently but it wouldn’t let me because my “license has gone stale and must be updated. Please make sure that you’re connected to the internet, then check for an updated license to continue using the product.” Clicking on the “Check for an updated license” command did not work. Under the “All Accounts” section of the dialog, there was a message under my account saying that “We need to refresh the credentials for this account.” Notice the Re-enter your credentials command.

Re-entering credentials failed with the AcccountNotFound error:

Fortunately, this issue had already been reported in Authentication: WAM sign-in fails when Windows account is missing – Developer Community and there was a work-around: remove the folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\IdentityCache. This issue did pique my curiosity about how modern authentication is done. The Overview of the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) – Microsoft identity platform appears to be sufficiently detailed. I’ll also have to poke around in the Microsoft Authentication Library for Java at some point. Thankfully, these libraries are open source, e.g. AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-dotnet: Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) for .NET.