Windows 24H2 (Broken Changes) - Problem with RADIUS SmartCard Authentication & RADIUS VLAN Tagging on Wi-Fi

Question

We are commencing a rollback of the latest update for 24H2 due to complications with RADIUS Authentication for SmartCards and RADIUS VLAN Tagging on Wi-Fi networks in the newest version of Windows.

Regarding RADIUS SmartCard authentication, we have observed complete freezes in the user interface, necessitating the termination of the "Credentials UI Host Manager" process. Our investigation indicates that this freezing issue does not manifest on all devices operating on 24H2 when authentication is performed at the Windows login screen or through Wi-Fi settings.

Concerning RADIUS VLAN Tagging, we have similarly identified functionality issues on 24H2 clients utilizing SmartCard Authentication on the primary CORP Wi-Fi network and password-based authentication on the secondary CORP Wi-Fi network. Our network monitoring has revealed a decrease in authentication success rates (802.1X RADIUS Authentication) from 100% to 86%, which we attribute to approximately 14% of our employees using the latest update. At the same time, the remaining users operate without any reported issues.

Answer 1

Hello,

Based on the information you provided, I cannot help you further troubleshoot the problem. When the customer fails to successfully authorize, check the event log to see if there is any related error message. If there is, please reply here. I suggest you refer to the following link for troubleshooting:

802.1X authentication issues troubleshooting - Windows Client | Microsoft Learn

Best Regards

Zunhui

Answer 2

Hi

We've been having the same issue on our 'test' PC's for the 24H2 upgrade.

We have found that if you connect to the radius Wi-Fi SSID you dont get internet. But if you reboot while you are connected to that WiFi network, after the reboot it works.

Answer 3

Hello,

Thank you for the reply, but that is not our issue, we use smart cards on our computers, and we us AD for Radius, so how it works is that once your card is in and you are logged in, if you try to join the domain's network, it will ask for the card's pin code to authenticate you and set you on the according VLAN specific to the department you are assigned in AD.

The issued appears when you try to put in the password, the credential manager UI host process (see picture) freezes and you are not able to type anything. In order to get around this, you need to run task manage and then kill the process. If you try again, it will simply repeat.

It was confirmed that 24h2 is the root cause as we updated a working 23h2 computer to 24h2, which then immediately was unable to connect, but after rolling back to 23h2 immediately brought back the functionality.

So technically Radius works but we can't get to it because the credential manager UI host process freezes before Radius gets to do it thing. We tend to think that it's more of a GUI problem.
Hope this helps with troubleshooting