firebase-ios-sdk: Firebase Auth with Microsoft (Azure AD) - Login not possible - "Unable to process request due to missing initial state"

[REQUIRED] Step 1: Describe your environment

Xcode version: XCode 12.2 (12B45b)
Firebase SDK version: 7.3.0
Installation method: CocoaPods
Firebase Component: Auth

[REQUIRED] Step 2: Describe the problem

Steps to reproduce:

When logging in to Firebase with Microsofts Azure AD as an authentication service by using provider.getCredentialWith(_: nil) I am able to open the Microsoft login page. After entering the correct email + password then the following error appears inside the In-App-Browser: “Unable to process request due to missing initial state. This may happen if browser sessionStorage is inaccessible or accidentally cleared.”

The problem appears no matter if I set Chrome or Safari as a standard browser in iOS settings.
It happens on real devices (iPhone and iPad, iOS 14.2/14.3 and others), but not every user is affected. Most users can login without any problems.
I can’t determine in what kind of circumstances the problem occurs, but on a device where the problem occurs, it is always reproducable.

What did work for me as a workaround: In my completion handler of provider.getCredentialWith(_: nil) I call the same function with a delay of 1second again if an error was thrown. On the second run it always succeeds and gives me the credentials back.

Relevant Code:

                        provider.getCredentialWith(_: nil){credential, error in
                            if error != nil {
                                self.errorText = "Error"
                                return
                            }
                            if let credential = credential {
                                firebaseSignIn(credential: credential)
                            }
                        }

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 4 years ago
Reactions: 10
Comments: 21 (3 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Just commenting to mention that this is still an existing important problem.

bw-flagship on Nov 18, 2022

same issue for google sign in on web

Raphaelinyang on Dec 16, 2020

Hi, I encountered the same issue when trying to use the OauthProvider for an OpenID connector configured for a Google workspace.

I found a workaround by forking FirebaseAuth and using an ASWebAuthenticationSession instead of the SFSafariViewController to open the authentication URL. You can find the implementation here : https://github.com/kraaft-co/firebase-ios-sdk/commit/3b47b1928eda255ab37525ce91711ef448b6f148

There are some side effects :

before opening the authentication session, the user must accept an alert explaining “MyApp” wants to use “myproject.firebaseapp.com” to Sign In. Using a custom domain, like proposed by @mortenbekditlevsen makes this alert more acceptable for the user (or it is possible to set the option prefersEphemeralWebBrowserSession).
the same component is also used by other flows, like the reCaptcha challenge which is sometimes proposed with the Phone provider. It seems to work fine but the alert is also displayed.

If this proposition seems promising, I would be happy to help building a PR based on this.

cedricboidin on Apr 26, 2023

I can confirm the solution that @mortenbekditlevsen described. I had no problems with logging in with Azure AD until today when I received the above error message (almost) all the time. 9 out of 10 times I was not able to login, but sometimes it just went through fine. Disabling “Prevent Cross-Site Tracking” however fixed the issue, and I’m able to login every single time. I hope a solution will be found that does not require the user to change this cross-site tracking option for Safari.

MauriceS on Aug 26, 2021

I tried all of the methods listed in the link but didn’t work. interesting thing is, when I signInWithPopup it works fine, but when I access the app from microsoft azure ad myapp list, it fails at the https://******/__/auth/handler. trying to implement SSO-SAML here.

iamswain25 on Nov 5, 2021

Any update on this issue?

k90armstrong on Nov 4, 2021

Same issue.

nagaperla on Feb 23, 2021