Validation of viewstate MAC failed

[Ray Stevens]

We have a web application running on a server farm that is behind a CISCO
CSS switch. This switch has been configured to support sticky sessions so I
am at a loss as to what might be causing this error.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Rick Strahl [MVP]]

Hi Ray,

Most likely it's not working 100% and not completely sticky <g>...

The best thing to do for ViewState at least is to set the machinekey in
machine.config to the same value on each machine so all machines use the
same viewstate encoding which prevents corruption should the session end up
on another box.

The non-sticky issue may have to do with varying URL formatting schemes (IP
vs. domain, different spelling ofthe protocol or http/https traversal>

+++ Rick ---

--

Rick Strahl
West Wind Technologies
www.west-wind.com
www.west-wind.com/weblog


"Ray Stevens" <nf*@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:OJ**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

We have a web application running on a server farm that is behind a CISCO
CSS switch. This switch has been configured to support sticky sessions so
I am at a loss as to what might be causing this error.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Brock Allen]

> The best thing to do for ViewState at least is to set the machinekey

in machine.config to the same value on each machine so all machines
use the same viewstate encoding which prevents corruption should the
session end up on another box.

This allows you to get rid of sticky sessions too.

-Brock
DevelopMentor
http://staff.develop.com/ballen

[Ray Stevens]

Not quite... we are storing state on the server.

But it does sound like the CISCO CSS sticky sessions do have an occasional
hic-up, which is not good. This may force us to use SQL Server or ASP.NET
State Server service.

"Brock Allen" <ba****@NOSPAMdevelop.com> wrote in message
news:10***********************@msnews.microsoft.co m...

The best thing to do for ViewState at least is to set the machinekey
in machine.config to the same value on each machine so all machines
use the same viewstate encoding which prevents corruption should the
session end up on another box.

This allows you to get rid of sticky sessions too.

-Brock
DevelopMentor
http://staff.develop.com/ballen

[Brock Allen]

>> This allows you to get rid of sticky sessions too.

Not quite... we are storing state on the server.

Oh, bummer :(

Regardless, I will continue my plight to rid the world of session state :)

-Brock
DevelopMentor
http://staff.develop.com/ballen