Seeing "We couldn't sign you in" when trying to log in to Azure Portal from any account

Question

I'm setting up a brand new installation of Windows for development activities. I've got most of my normal software installed -- nothing out of the ordinary has been added; nothing that has caused me trouble on any other computers.

I'm now finding that I'm stuck in a login loop on the Azure Portal. I start with the standard Microsoft Account login prompt, where I enter my username, then password, then OTP code. After that, I see the Azure logo where I can also observe my browser redirecting back and forth between the login.microsoftonline.com domain and the portal.azure.com domain. Eventually, It will stop and display the unhelpful text, "We couldn't sign you in. Please try again," on the login screen.

Things I've tried to solve this problem:

• Log in to different Microsoft accounts -- one personal, one workplace. Both fail in the same way.
• Clear all cookies and site data.
• Incognito in Chrome (all extensions disabled)
• Incognito in Edge (which should be a pretty clean/pure environment given that I never use Edge)
• A new local user account in Windows just to test.
• Restarting in safe mode with networking.
• Using wifi instead of ethernet.
• Using my phone's wifi hotspot instead of my normal ISP.

The problem seems localized just to this Windows device, however. The other Windows device still works fine if I log out and back in. And other services, such as Azure DevOps, and account.microsoft.com, work just fine.

I'm really baffled by this, and am not looking forward to reinstalling Windows 11 and all my dev tools again if that's the only solution we can come up with. I feel the operating system environment should not have this sort of impact on a website login flow...

Answer 1

The problem was seemingly caused by my timezone being incorrect (pacific vs central) 🤦‍♂️

Answer 2

Hi, I'm really sorry this happened to you. I think this case maybe not be your fault. One of the best solutions is to contact Azure support.

I've included some documentation to help you out.

1. Create an Azure support request
2. Contact Microsoft Azure Support

Answer 3

Hi, I'm really sorry this happened to you. I think this case maybe not be your fault. One of the best solutions is to contact Azure support.

I've included some documentation to help you out.

Create an Azure support request

Contact Microsoft Azure Support

Answer 4

Hi Kevin, I've been having a similar problem recently and it was driving me nuts. I suspect it has to do with Azure AD expired tokens, but I didn't want to clear my browser cache every time this happens.

It could also be because I frequently login to multiple Azure tenants and maybe that causes issues with refresh tokens, I'm not sure.. I even switched from Chrome to Edge but the problem followed. The best option that seems to work is to configure clear cookies/tokens when I close my browser. If you're using Edge that setting is here: edge://settings/clearBrowsingDataOnClose I clear cookies, password, and site permissions, but you may only have to clear cookies.

Here's how you clear cookies on exit with Chrome:
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/automatically-delete-browsing-history-chrome/#:~:text=1%20Click%20the%20More%20icon%20%3E%20Settings%202,cookies%20and%20site%20data%20when%20you%20quit%20Chrome

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

Hello @Kevin

I really want to appreciate you for this post.

I have been battling the same issue for over weeks now.

Fortunately the root cause was the same.

Corrected the timezone and everything started working.

Thank you very much.