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If you’re using the Windows Azure Access Control Service (or any other STS for that matter) this is an issue you might encounter when your Web Role has more than one instance: [CryptographicException: Key not valid for use in specified state.] System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData.Unprotect(Byte[] encryptedData, Byte[] optionalEntropy, DataProtectionScope scope) +450 Microsoft.IdentityModel.Web.ProtectedDataCookieTransform.Decode(Byte[] encoded) +150 As explained in the Windows Azure Training Kit this is caused by the DPAPI: What does ServiceConfigurationCreated do? By default WIF SessionTokens use DPAPI to protect the content of Cookies that it sends to the client, however DPAPI is not available in Windows Azure hence you must use an alternative mechanism. In this case, we rely on RsaEncryptionCookieTransform, which we use for encrypting the cookies with the same certificate we are using for SSL in our website. Over a year ago I blogged about this issue but that solution applies to .NET 3.5/4.0 with Visual Studio 2010. Let’s take a look at how you can solve this issue when you’re working in .NET 4.5.