Authentication Error. CRM could not log you on to the system.

Hi. I'm having a problem with a new CRM 3.0 installation. The
configuration is as follows: CRM, SQL 2000 sp4 & Active Directory are
all on separate machines running Windows Server 2003 sp1.

The error I'm getting when I attempt to browse to the CRM website is:

Authentication Error
Microsoft CRM could not log you on to the system. Make sure your user
record is enabled and that you have been assigned at least one security
role. For more information, contact your system administrator.

After opening Deployment Manager the following error appears:

The server http://crmserver:5555/MSCRMServices/ is not responding. This
might happen if it is currently unavailable, it is not a Microsoft CRM
server, or you do not have sufficient privileges to run User Manager.
For more information contact your system administrator.

I am logged in as the user I used to install CRM. This is a Domain
Admin account.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Markus
Thu Dec 29 01:28:25 CST 2005

Lenny,
unfortunately I get the same error and I have no idea how to fix this.

Authentication Error
Microsoft CRM could not log you on to the system.


All I rember is a message-box after the first start, telling me that
something went wrong (Standard-Messagetext).
(Server Restart, re-install etc. nothing)

The symptoms:
Then I recognized that there's no license-row and no user-row in the
SQL-Database. And it seems that is the reason why I cannot logon. Using
the Deploymentmanager does not show a license and it does not allow me
to add a user :-( !(?)
Surprisingly enough that I am also not allowed to add (or fix) the
license. Message: "There's already a Server-License!", even if there
isn't any!


Anyway, the license is valid - sure - since I used the official license
from MSDN and another one (after re-install) from a running CRM-System
(Partner Testlicense).

I am with you and I'd like to know if anyone could help?

Markus Schmidt

Markus
Fri Dec 30 02:05:55 CST 2005

Now, I tried almost everything - no success!
I am not able to install CRM 3.0 on my server without an error.
Installation fails and I always got Authentication Error due to the fact
that there's no user-record in the database after the installation.


Then I took an existing test-installation (the two databases) from our
customer and restored it on my server (using the Redeployment-Tool [read
manual!]). And - what a surprise - it works!


So, my final statement here is: the CRM 3.0 Setup creates the two
databases but it is not able to create some mandatory records, like the
admin-user-record (and others).

My Tip: If you have ever installed MS-CRM 3.0 on any machine, backup
your databases and keep this initial backup. You may redeploy these
database on another machine if Setup does not run properly.

Markus Schmidt

Lenny
Fri Dec 30 09:52:10 CST 2005

Thanks for the info Markus! I checked my database to make sure the
user record exists and it does. Something else is the cause. Do you
have SQL on a separate box from CRM? I think there is an
authentication issue between CRM & SQL b/c I have them on separate
boxes and SQL is configured for Mixed Authentication (due to other
databases on it that require sql authentication). The IG says Windows
Authentication is required. The error I get the very first time I try
to open CRM is:

Login failed for user '(null)'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted
SQL Server connection.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of
the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more
information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Login failed for
user '(null)'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server
connection.

Then, if I do a refresh on that page I get the Authentication error
you're seeing. If I reset IIS, I get the above error and after that
the Authentication error.

I took a working installation (SBS) and changed SQL authentication to
Mixed, restarted SQL services and CRM continued to work. So I'm not
sure what's going on here.

Markus
Fri Dec 30 10:54:42 CST 2005

Lenny,
I have everything on a single machine (test-environment).
Everything is in a single domain, dedictated to MSCRM.

>Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection.

I've seen this message very often, even if I don't know the exact reason
for it. I saw it when I tried to access the SQL Server database directly
through ODBC for example (e.g. using Windows Authentication but beeing
logged on in a different Domain).

You should make sure that your SQL Server uses Windows Integrated
Authentication and that the SQL Server authenticates in the same Domain
(as CRM). Another very imporant issue is, that the current user of your
client machine has Windows-logged-on to the CRM-Domain (which is non
-mixed-mode-Domain)!!!

Anyway, I am not sure which account CRM uses to authenticate against the
SQL-Server if on a different machine (maybe Network Service), since the
CRM-Metadata-Layer manages the access restriction and not the SQL-Server.

Hope this helps.

Markus Schmidt

Lenny
Tue Jan 03 10:41:05 CST 2006

Thanks for your suggestions Markus. I will attempt to reinstall and
point to a different sql server which uses windows auth and post back.
i actually have a thread going about this same topic in the
microsoft.public.crm.deployment as well.

thanks again!

Lenny.

CoryJohnsonEP
Tue Jan 17 18:25:02 CST 2006

Were you able to resolve this error? I'm attempting to upgrade from 1.2 to
3.0. 1.2 worked great, but since the upgrade, I get the exact same error
message you received.

Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Cory

"Lenny" wrote:

> Thanks for your suggestions Markus. I will attempt to reinstall and
> point to a different sql server which uses windows auth and post back.
> i actually have a thread going about this same topic in the
> microsoft.public.crm.deployment as well.
>
> thanks again!
>
> Lenny.
>
>

Markus
Wed Jan 18 02:48:57 CST 2006

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------000503010106050903080100
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Cory,
after installing CRM, SQL2005 etc. on a single machine I was not able to
authenticate against CRM even if I was logged on in the CRM's domain.

Checking the CRM-SQL database, I saw that there wasn't any valid
CRM-User Account - even the Admin account was missing. I spent some DAYS
to get it working - w/o success.

Then I took another CRM-Database from a customer, ran the Redeployment
Wizard and - surprise - it worked.

For any reason the CRM installation was not able to create any
user-account in its initial database.

So, my suggestion is:
a) Check if there are user accounts in your CRM database.
b) and try the redeployment wizard (from the CRM-Server CD) if it can
map user's (if there is any)

Markus Schmidt
(Germany)

--------------000503010106050903080100
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#330099">
Cory,<br>
after installing CRM, SQL2005 etc. on a single machine I was not able
to authenticate against CRM even if I was logged on in the CRM's
domain. <br>
<br>
Checking the CRM-SQL database, I saw that there wasn't any valid
CRM-User Account - even the Admin account was missing. I spent some
DAYS to get it working - w/o success.<br>
<br>
Then I took another CRM-Database from a customer, ran the Redeployment
Wizard and - surprise - it worked. <br>
<br>
For any reason the CRM installation was not able to create any
user-account in its initial database. <br>
<br>
So, my suggestion is: <br>
a) Check if there are user accounts in your CRM database.<br>
b) and try the redeployment wizard (from the CRM-Server CD) if it can
map user's (if there is any)<br>
<br>
Markus Schmidt<br>
(Germany)<br>
</body>
</html>

--------------000503010106050903080100--

mummenschans
Fri Jan 20 09:47:55 CST 2006

Hi,

had the same Problem with "Authentication failure". The solution was to
check all rights in the SQL-Database. We have different servers for CRM
and SQL and the computer account of our CRM-Server didn't have the
right to access the two main crm databases. Either you have to grant
the rights explicitly or you have to check if the server is in the
group ...SQLAccessGroup...and this group can access the databases.
Hope this helps somebody,

PF

Markus Schmidt wrote:
> Cory,
> after installing CRM, SQL2005 etc. on a single machine I was not able to
> authenticate against CRM even if I was logged on in the CRM's domain.
>
> Checking the CRM-SQL database, I saw that there wasn't any valid
> CRM-User Account - even the Admin account was missing. I spent some DAYS
> to get it working - w/o success.
>
> Then I took another CRM-Database from a customer, ran the Redeployment
> Wizard and - surprise - it worked.
>
> For any reason the CRM installation was not able to create any
> user-account in its initial database.
>
> So, my suggestion is:
> a) Check if there are user accounts in your CRM database.
> b) and try the redeployment wizard (from the CRM-Server CD) if it can
> map user's (if there is any)
>
> Markus Schmidt
> (Germany)