"Unable to service request" when trying to log into a Microsoft website

This post was most recently updated on September 8th, 2020.

2 min read.

Okay – so this one is going to be a simple blog post. I’ll be explaining an apparent fan favorite! Namely, MSDN forums, MSDN subscriber downloads or other Microsoft web properties are not letting you sign in, but rather throw the following error:

Unable to service request

Why do you get an error like this? How to resolve it?

Background

Table of Contents

I was recently reading Joanne C. Klein’s blog, and she gave a great tip about blogging: look into the search queries, that keep bringing people to your site, and see what are the questions people have, and you’re not answering.

Well, quite clearly, MSDN-related topics have been one of mine!

MSDN-related queries in my Google Search Console data. There's quite a few... — MSDN-related queries in my Google Search Console data. There’s quite a few…

These are just a few of MSDN-related keyword combinations that bring people on to the site – so let’s try to clear a couple of things out, shall we?

Solutions

Different solutions to different things people come looking for – hope this helps:

Login fails with “Unable to Service request”

Boringly enough, the solution to this issue is exactly the same as the solution to “Bad Request – Request Too Long”. Clear cookies.

Since doing that might require a couple of steps if you don’t just want to nuke all of your web history, you might want to follow a step-by-step guide to just remove the offending cookies. And you’re in luck: my earlier blog post (linked below) explains how:

How to log in to Microsoft’s websites (MSDN forums, Azure Portal, SharePoint Online) when you get a “Bad Request” error?

Following that, you should probably be good!

References & Other useful links

Some other links and references for your perusal:

AADSTS90056: This endpoint only accepts POST, OPTIONS requests. Received a GET request.

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Antti K. Koskela

Developer / Speaker / Consultant at Koskila / Precio Fishbone / Norppandalotti Software Co / Alter - Experience Ideas Ltd

Antti Koskela is a proud digital native nomadic millennial full stack developer (is that enough funny buzzwords? That's definitely enough funny buzzwords!), who works as Solutions Architect for Precio Fishbone, building delightful Digital Workplaces.

He's been a developer from 2004 (starting with PHP and Java), and he's been working on .NET projects, Azure, Office 365, SharePoint and a lot of other stuff. He's also Microsoft MVP for Office Development.

This is his personal professional (e.g. professional, but definitely personal) blog.

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