Visual Studio 2017 - How to fix error: We could not refresh the credentials for the account

Question

My email address has changed and now I can\'t log into Visual Studio 2017.

The error is \"We could not refresh the credentials for the account. Failed to refresh th

Answer 1

I have read dozens of posts on this topic discussing clearing out .IdentityService. I tried every variation of this solution that one might think of. None worked.

I ended up poking around and trying to manually login to my Microsoft account using Internet Explorer, but I could not connect to https://login.microsoftonline.com. I added the https://login.microsoftonline.com address to my Trusted Sites in Internet Options. Once I had done this, Visual Studio was able to connect to Microsoft and validate my account.

Answer 2

I just fixed it by changing folder to be public. folder files: "C:\Users{username}\AppData\Local.IdentityService" right click and choose property and uncheck the hidden and apply it.

Answer 3

Open Visual Studio. Click Help, Send Feedback, Report a Problem...

This brings you to a login screen. If you log in from there, it will log you into Visual Studio.

Answer 4

I was getting this error from our proxy having restrictive rules in place, I was able to add the sites to a whitelist that were being blocked while trying to login.

Some of the sites I whitelisted in Webmarshal were:

• *.windows.net
• *.msocsp.com
• *.ws.symantec.com
• *.digicert.com
• *.clicktale.net
• app.vssps.visualstudio.com
• demdex.net

Answer 5

This bug will be fixed in a future version.

For now:

• Close down VS2017
• Go to "C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\.IdentityService"
• Rename "IdentityServiceAdalCache.cache" as shown below. (for example just add an underscore to it)
• Restart VS2017 and log in.

NOTE: There are similar issues that this won't resolve, but this worked for me.

Answer 6

For me it was due wrong system time, after setting correct time it got fixed automatically