This article explains how to get rid of sudden and unexplainable 401 Access Denied errors when trying to authenticate against a fairly fresh Microsoft 365 / SharePoint Online tenant. This issue seems to be caused by a long-ish project to finally retire ACS – Azure Access Control service) on SharePoint (it’s retired everywhere else already!) Note: This is an updating story, as the situation with ACS is definitely… Developing. Yeah, let’s call it that. It’s a developing situation. Problem In the beginning of September, a…Continue reading (Literally) Breaking: Changes to app authentication on SharePoint! 😵
How to remove your account as a guest in another Azure AD tenant?
This article explains how to fix your account, whenever it gets completely FUBAR due to your account being added as a guest in another AAD organization. And this might happen in multiple different situations – my most typical woe is Visual Studio’s Cloud Explorer, which stops showing me my subscriptions due to authentication against the other organizations failing. Add some extra difficulty by having someone in the other directory block your account from signing in, and you can’t even remove the account by any usual…Continue reading How to remove your account as a guest in another Azure AD tenant?
Is Lifetime Spotify Premium a scam?
This article describes another fishy online offering, Spotify Premium Lifetime subscription. Long story short, it’s a scam, just not a very heinous one. Depending on the calibration of your moral compass, it might even be worth it, although definitely not recommended. Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on with this criminal affair, then! A while back, I wrote an article about cybercriminals stealing your money and your data, if you buy an “Office 365 Lifetime subscription”. Just for the record: it’s not a…Continue reading Is Lifetime Spotify Premium a scam?
How to fix “AADSTS50011 – The resource principal named was not found in the tenant”
Another day, another variant of AADSTS50011! With a lot of apps and web services using Azure Active Directory for authentication, you’re bound to run into issues, right? Ah well, one would hope to avoid them. But at least this one is usually easy to fix! Problem I’ve encountered 2 different variants of this particular issue – the error message may or may not contain the name of the principal it’s looking for, and the guid of the tenant it’s looking for the principal in. AADSTS500011…Continue reading How to fix “AADSTS50011 – The resource principal named was not found in the tenant”
How to fix error AADSTS50196 on Microsoft web properties?
This article explains how to fix error with error code AADSTS50196. This issue usually comes up with an error message somewhat like “The server terminated an operation because it encountered a client request loop.” The error seems to be popping up more and more often. No worries – it wasn’t caused by you! It is, in fact, an unintended side effect of a security hardening feature in some browsers, and some outdated configuration on Microsoft’s end. Obviously, you could run into the issue on other…Continue reading How to fix error AADSTS50196 on Microsoft web properties?
The all-important MSDN Subscriber links
This article serves as a simple glossary of important MSDN Subscriber links that I always forget – links that Microsoft keeps updating, that is! I’ll be updating the post as need be :) And yes, I do feel a little bit ridiculous about creating an actual article about something as simple as a list of links to stuff that should be easily discoverable by any search engine. But I suppose it is what it is. Anyway, it seems to me like any time I need…Continue reading The all-important MSDN Subscriber links
Fixing issues with uploading pictures to WordPress Media Library
This article will go through different solutions for fixing issues with uploading pictures to your WordPress Media Library. There’s plenty of reasons that could cause this issue – and a couple of different ways to bump into it. I’ll be proposing a few different ways to fix the issue in your installation. Unlike some of the more aggravated users online suggest, this isn’t likely a bug in WordPress – rather, it’s a configuration / compatibility issue. Luckily, it’s usually something you can fix yourself. Problem…Continue reading Fixing issues with uploading pictures to WordPress Media Library
How to restore lost windows in Visual Studio?
This article explains how to restore any hidden windows in Visual Studio without resetting your whole window layout, by using a common keyboard shortcut. Problem We’ve all been there – you’re opening a new window in Visual Studio, but your keyboard shortcut or clicking the item in the menu simply seems to do nothing. The window doesn’t show up anywhere. Reason The reason for this (most of the time) is simple: you have the window popped-up and located outside your screen. This happens pretty much…Continue reading How to restore lost windows in Visual Studio?
Worx Landroid L2000 (WR155E) – an honest review
In this article, I’m sharing my perspective and experiences of Worx Landroid L2000 – an autonomous lawn mower I’ve had for about 2 summers now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to help someone else make an informed decision about getting a puppy like this. Anyway – a step back, the 10k-feet view first, as usual. Robot lawn mowers are slowly becoming a commodity, but choosing the right one is still tough. The models are different, the marketing differs, the features and even the behavior of the…Continue reading Worx Landroid L2000 (WR155E) – an honest review
How to resolve “Microsoft.Data.SqlClient is not supported on this platform.” in an Azure Function App?
Hah – another interesting one. This article describes how to resolve an error along the lines of “Microsoft.Data.SqlClient: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient is not supported on this platform.“, thrown by Azure Functions host. Apparently you can run into this issue either on your local development machine or even in Azure. Problem For me, this error popped up after some house cleaning tasks – dependency updates, merging feature branches… You know the stuff. And suddenly, while the Azure Function App would build and run just fine, my SQL calls…Continue reading How to resolve “Microsoft.Data.SqlClient is not supported on this platform.” in an Azure Function App?
Gotchas when configuring Home Assistant on Docker on Windows
What a nice headline, right? 😅 One day, I thought I’d give Home Assistant a try! And obviously, I couldn’t just make things easy and run it in a Linux virtual machine or my Raspberry Pi – instead, obviously I decided to run it on Windows 10! And obviously, I’d use Docker for it. And of course, not just Docker, but docker-compose. Whatever that is. I don’t know – it’s the first time I’m trying out Docker. Or Home Assistant! Another learning experience coming in,…Continue reading Gotchas when configuring Home Assistant on Docker on Windows
Enabling local cache for an Azure App Service
This article explains one easy way for you to improve the performance and uptime of your Azure App Service. I’ll explain a simple but kind-of-hidden and surprisingly badly documented feature – Azure App Service Local Cache, that is – which might make a huge difference. It sure did for me! Since it’s such a no-brainen, I’m kind of half expecting everyone else to already having known about this, but since nobody told me about it, I’m going to document it for future use. Background Let’s…Continue reading Enabling local cache for an Azure App Service
How to verify connection to database in Entity Framework Core?
This article explains how to perform a very simple and lightweight database connection test for an existing database context. A while ago, I needed to develop a simple API that I can poll from a load balancer to see whether: An Azure service hosting it is up and It has a connection to its SQL database This simple API would be used for monitoring purposes – simple stuff, sure, but what’s the best way to implement this without causing any unnecessary load to the database,…Continue reading How to verify connection to database in Entity Framework Core?
How to resolve “Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Cannot insert explicit value for identity column in table when IDENTITY_INSERT is set to OFF”
Okay, okay – another super simple thing that I messed up, fixed, and decided to document :) This time I messed up a simple operation in Entity Framework Core operation on a simple entity, and hopefully I’ll save someone else some trouble! Onwards to the issue, then! Problem So when you’re trying to insert stuff into your database – somewhat like shown in the example below: var entity = new MyEntity(){ Id = 1337, Name = “My Entity” }; _ctx.MyEntities.Add(entity); _ctx.SaveChanges(); You get an error…Continue reading How to resolve “Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Cannot insert explicit value for identity column in table when IDENTITY_INSERT is set to OFF”
How to resolve persistent “Build started… Build failed.” when trying to run Entity Framework Core commands?
This time, I’m happy to present you perhaps the simplest way of fixing an annoying and persistent issue with a misleading error message! Wait, does that sound familiar? It’s almost like that’s what half of my articles are about… Anyway, I was happily going my way about creating a couple of new fields to an entity and then scaffolding my changes to a new migration using Entity Framework Core’s Add-Migration, but this happened: Build started… Build failed. “Oh”, I thought. “I must have messed something…Continue reading How to resolve persistent “Build started… Build failed.” when trying to run Entity Framework Core commands?
SharePoint Home Sites – a Game Changer?
This topic seems to be on everyone’s mind right now: SharePoint Home Sites. They’re finally rolling out (again). Or maybe even rolled out, in case this article ends up late in my publishing queue! But what are they? How do you create SharePoint Home sites? How do you best use them in your organization? To take a step back, let’s first take a step upwards – to get the 1000-feet view! Getting the big picture – why is Microsoft doing this stuff in the first…Continue reading SharePoint Home Sites – a Game Changer?
How to resolve another “An error occurred while updating the entries” exception in Entity Framework Core
This article offers yet another possible fix to an issue, where trying to call SaveChanges() in Entity Framework Core throws a pretty generic “An error occurred while updating the entries”-exception, and you’re left wondering what in tarnation is wrong this time. And admittedly, that’s a really generic error, so it could be pretty much whatever. But in this article, I’ll go through one possibility – hopefully it helps! Problem So I was just pushing in some new rows to an incredibly simple table in my…Continue reading How to resolve another “An error occurred while updating the entries” exception in Entity Framework Core
How to find out the Directory ID of your Azure AD tenant?
This article explains in extremely short way, how to fetch your Azure Active Directory tenant’s Directory ID. Let’s make it short and sweet, because quite frankly, it is really simple! Solution Option 1: Use whatismytenantid.com for finding your tenant/directory id: Quick solution – works (at least) for all standard tenants: Navigate to https://www.whatismytenantid.com/ Enter the domain associated with your Azure AD instance (often like contoso.onmicrosoft.com) Let ShareGate do their magic and find your tenant/directory id for you! Thanks to Thomas Vochten for pointing this out…Continue reading How to find out the Directory ID of your Azure AD tenant?
How to resolve error “Insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program.” when debugging Azure Functions locally?
This article describes a solution to an error “Insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program.” I was debugging an Azure Function locally and ran into it – it stopped my Azure Function from starting at all. So, this is what I got: Ohh… kay..? My development machines have plenty of RAM, surely enough to run an Azure Function! So what gives?
How to implement multiple Connection Strings for one DbContext in EF Core?
Recently, while building an app service to host a .NET Core API, I had to implement the logic for using both Read-Only and Read-Write Database Contexts for Entity Framework Core. In this particular case, it was the same database – just different contexts, because depending on the location of the app service the app was deployed in, read and write operations might actually go to different database instances, That’s really easy, right? Well… Yes and no. Essentially, it’s easy to spin up, but comes with…Continue reading How to implement multiple Connection Strings for one DbContext in EF Core?
