Intermittent Blank White Screen after Login

Question

I am trying to get a Sharepoint Document Archive set up and running using Forms Authentication, and have run into an intermittent error that is causing an unpredictable failure in the login process.

The way the error pans out is like so:

Error Workflow: Forms Auth

I open the Sharepoint Site and land on the default Login page where it asks me to choose between Windows Auth and Forms Auth. I select Forms Authentication, and it takes me to the generic Forms Auth login page.

I enter a valid username and password, then click submit. The URL redirects to: "[SharepointSite]/_layouts/Authenticate.aspx?[bunch of query string info]"

And stops, displaying only a blank page.

I re-enter the url to go to the site, and it redirects me to "[SharepointSite]/Site/Default.aspx" and stops, displaying only a blank page.

If I attempt to use Windows Authentication, I get the exact same results.

Workaround Fix

If I open up Sharepoint Central Management, and do the following steps...

1. Disable Forms Authentication
2. Restart IIS

Then the site starts working again for Windows Logins. If I continue and...

1. Enable Forms Authentication (re-adding the Membership and Roles providers)
2. Restart IIS

Then everything goes back to working properly.

I am very new to managing SharePoint, so it's very possible I'm doing something wrong...but what would be causing this behavior, and how can I make it stop? (This is unfortunately going to be time-consuming to test, as the error only seems to happen once a day or so)

Answer 1

Try to change property of the Security Token Service Application Pool. 'Load Profile = true' In the IIS settings of the application Pool. I get similar issue on my all 2013 systems that use FBA. But in my case IIS reset resolves the issue, no need to re-add FBA.