Lessons Learned #552:10 Lines in an SSMS MSAL Trace That Tell You Almost Everything You Need to Know
In one of our support cases, a customer reported higher-than-expected connection times when connecting from SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to Azure SQL Database using Microsoft Entra authentication. The behavior was also not completely consistent. Sometimes the connection required interaction with the account selection experience. Other times, subsequent connections were noticeably faster. At first, there were several possible areas to investigate: Was Azure SQL taking too long to authenticate the user? Was there a networking, proxy, or firewall issue? Was access to login.microsoftonline.com being delayed or denied? Was Microsoft Entra authentication itself taking the time? Was Conditional Access or MFA involved? Was SSMS using the expected Microsoft Entra account? Was the delay happening before or after the access token was obtained? The important question became: Where exactly was the connection time being spent? Instead of treating the SSMS connection as a single operation, I enabled verbose MSAL tracing in SSMS and started following the authentication process. SSMS exposes the MSAL Output Window Trace Level under Tools → Options → Azure Services. The same options page exposes the Microsoft Entra authority, Azure SQL Database service principal name, and Web Account Manager settings. The resulting trace was large—hundreds of lines. But while analyzing it, I realized something useful: I didn't need to understand every line in the MSAL trace. A small number of search strings were enough to reconstruct almost the entire authentication story. These are the 10 things I learned to look for. 1. CorrelationId — First, make sure I am following the same authentication request One of the first things I learned was not to read the trace only by timestamp. MSAL performs several related operations: GetAccounts. AcquireTokenSilent. ReadAccountById AcquireTokenInteractive Broker operations Token cache operations Some can happen almost at the same time, and they don't necessarily share the same correlation ID. For example, in one reproduction, the silent authentication attempt had one correlation ID, while the subsequent interactive request used another one. So my first search became: CorrelationId I learned not to calculate latency by simply subtracting two nearby timestamps. First I identify: Operation + CorrelationId + Start / End and only then interpret the timing. This becomes particularly valuable if the logs later need to be correlated with identity-service investigations. MSAL exposes the correlation ID specifically to piece together an authentication flow. 2. ApiId — Was SSMS trying silent or interactive authentication? My second search became: ApiId In the first connection attempt I found: ApiId - AcquireTokenSilent That immediately told me that SSMS was not initially trying to display an authentication UI. It first attempted to obtain the token silently. But later in the same reproduction I found: ApiId - AcquireTokenInteractive Now the flow was becoming clearer: SSMS ->AcquireTokenSilent -> Silent authentication cannot continue -> AcquireTokenInteractive This was my first important lesson from the case: An SSMS Microsoft Entra connection isn't necessarily interactive from the beginning. MSAL can first try silent authentication and only switch to an interactive mechanism if necessary. Microsoft documents MsalUiRequiredException precisely for situations in which a non-interactive acquisition cannot continue without user interaction—for example because sign-in, MFA, consent, or another requirement must be satisfied. 3. Authority — Where was the authentication request actually going? The next thing I wanted to know was whether the delay could be associated with reaching Microsoft Entra. I searched for: Authority - The trace showed: Authority - https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>/ This single line gives us two very important pieces of information: https://login.microsoftonline.com/ -> Microsoft Entra tenant -> Identity authority That means that before blaming Azure SQL, I can establish which identity endpoint SSMS/MSAL is using. This is also where a frequently reported problem such as: "It looks like access to login.microsoftonline.com is denied." can be investigated much more precisely. If I see something such as: MsalServiceException StatusCode: 403 AADSTS.... then I need to inspect the Microsoft Entra response and its error code. If I see a DNS, TLS, proxy, connection timeout, or similar exception, the network path to the identity endpoint becomes much more relevant. Those are very different problems. MSAL distinguishes client/library errors (MsalClientException), token-provider/service responses (MsalServiceException), and scenarios requiring interaction (MsalUiRequiredException). Network failures that MSAL doesn't handle are propagated to the application. One thing I would not conclude from a 403 alone is: "The firewall is blocking login.microsoftonline.com." The ErrorCode, AADSTS code, StatusCode, and ResponseBody together are much more useful than the HTTP status alone. 4. Scopes — Which resource was SSMS requesting the token for? Another line that became essential was: Scopes - Our trace showed: Scopes - https://database.windows.net//.default This helped me separate two parts of the connection that are easy to mix together: Microsoft Entra Authority login.microsoftonline.com -> issues / obtains identity token Token requested for database.windows.net -> Azure SQL The Authority tells me where authentication is being performed. The scope tells me for which resource the token is being requested. SSMS documents https://database.windows.net/ as the Azure SQL Database service principal name used when obtaining a Microsoft Entra token. That gave me another troubleshooting rule: Don't treat a Microsoft Entra token acquisition problem and an Azure SQL authorization problem as the same thing. 5. LoginHint — What identity did SSMS suggest? The next search gave us one of the most interesting findings of the investigation: LoginHint In one reproduction we had: LoginHint provided: True and later: LoginHint - user@contoso.com In another reproduction, a different login hint was supplied, and MSAL eventually returned: MsalUiRequiredException ErrorCode: no_account_for_login_hint with the explanation that no account in the token cache matched that login hint. At first sight, it is tempting to interpret: no_account_for_login_hint as: Incorrect username But the other traces showed me that this interpretation is too simplistic. LoginHint is better understood as: "Try to locate or preselect this identity" It doesn't necessarily mean: "This is already the resolved MSAL account" . That distinction turned out to be very important. 6. Account provided and GetAllAccounts — LoginHint and Account are not the same thing This became perhaps my favorite finding from the investigation. I started searching for: GetAllAccounts and: Account provided In one trace we had: GetAllAccounts ... found 1 accounts but: LoginHint provided: True Account provided: false MSAL nevertheless ended with: no_account_for_login_hint This originally looked contradictory. There was an account in the cache, but MSAL said there was no account for the login hint. It isn't contradictory. What I learned was: An account exists ≠ An account matching this LoginHint exists Then I captured another scenario: LoginHint provided: False Account provided: Account username: user@contoso.com Now SSMS/MSAL wasn't trying to resolve a textual login hint. It already had a concrete account. I started thinking of the two cases like this: LoginHint -> "Try this identity" Account provided -> "Use this resolved identity" This distinction can be especially useful when investigating aliases, UPNs, multiple Windows accounts, cached identities, or cross-tenant accounts. The same error can also have another explanation Another reproduction made the lesson even clearer. This time the trace started with: GetAllAccounts ... found 0 accounts Found 0 RTs and 0 accounts SSMS attempted: LoginHint provided: True Account provided: false and again received: ErrorCode: no_account_for_login_hint But this time the UPN itself was valid. The cache simply contained no suitable account. So another important lesson was: Never diagnose no_account_for_login_hint from the error text alone. Check GetAllAccounts, LoginHint, and Account provided together. 7. ErrorCode, AADSTS, StatusCode — The error tells me where to investigate next At this point I realized that one of the fastest troubleshooting searches was simply: ErrorCode together with: AADSTS StatusCode ResponseBody MsalUiRequiredException MsalServiceException MsalClientException For example: MsalUiRequiredException ErrorCode: no_account_for_login_hint immediately tells me that I am still dealing with token acquisition/account resolution. I haven't reached the point where Azure SQL database permissions would explain this particular failure. This became my mental decision table: Evidence in the trace Where I would investigate first no_account_for_login_hint LoginHint / cached account / account resolution MsalUiRequiredException Why silent authentication requires interaction authentication_canceled Interactive UI / broker / user cancellation AADSTSxxxxx Microsoft Entra authentication or policy MsalServiceException Token provider/service response MsalClientException Client/library/device side DNS/TLS/proxy exception Connectivity to identity service Access token obtained successfully Move the investigation beyond token acquisition 8. Broker, WAM, authorization_type — Who was really authenticating me? This was another part that changed how I read SSMS authentication traces. I searched for: Broker WAM RuntimeBroker auth_flow authorization_type and found: Broker is configured followed by: Using Windows account picker and: Calling SignInInteractivelyAsync The telemetry then reported: auth_flow: Broker authorization_type: Interactive So the authentication path was more accurately represented as: SSMS -> MSAL -> Windows Web Account Manager -> Account / authentication broker -> Microsoft Entra WAM is a Windows component that MSAL can use as an authentication broker. It can integrate with accounts already known to Windows and provide SSO and account-selection capabilities. But another trace showed: authorization_type: WindowsIntegratedAuth during a silent acquisition. That taught me something else: The same SSMS connection target does not necessarily follow the same identity path every time. Account state, cache state, WAM, tenant, identity configuration, MFA, Conditional Access, and whether interaction is required can all affect the path. 9. AccessToken returned — This is the line that changes the investigation Eventually, I found the line that I consider one of the most useful in the entire trace: AccessToken returned: True In our successful authentication we also had: AccessToken Type: Bearer and later: === Token Acquisition finished successfully source: Broker This became a very useful troubleshooting boundary for me: Identity troubleshooting: Account LoginHint MSAL WAM MFA / CA Authority Token acquisition -> AccessToken returned: True -> Azure SQL Token validation Principal resolution Database authentication Authorization Permissions If the token has been successfully obtained, asking: "Why can't MSAL authenticate?" is probably no longer the most useful question. Now I want to know: "What happens when this token is presented to Azure SQL?" That doesn't prove that the complete SQL connection will succeed, but it gives us a very useful point at which to change troubleshooting direction. 10. DurationTotalInMs — Finally, I could see where the connection time was going This was the original reason for the support investigation. The customer reported high connection times. So eventually the most important searches became: DurationTotalInMs DurationInHttpInMs DurationInCacheInMs request_duration time_in_queue_ms Microsoft defines DurationTotalInMs as the total time spent by MSAL acquiring a token, including network and cache operations. DurationInHttpInMs represents time spent in HTTP calls made by MSAL to the identity provider, and DurationInCacheInMs measures cache activity. And now we finally had evidence from our reproduction. The first token acquisition reported: DurationTotalInMs: 2185 DurationInCacheInMs: 0 DurationInHttpInMs: 0 But the broker telemetry contained another very interesting metric: time_in_queue_ms: 2152 and request_duration: 2183 That changed the quality of the diagnosis completely. Instead of saying: "SSMS authentication seems to take around two seconds." I could say: The captured token acquisition took approximately 2.18 seconds, and approximately 2.15 seconds were represented as broker queue time in the MSAL/WAM telemetry. That is actionable evidence. Putting the 10 searches together By the end of the investigation, this became the sequence I would use when somebody sends me an SSMS MSAL trace: Search for What I want to know CorrelationId Am I following the same authentication operation? ApiId Silent or interactive token acquisition? Authority Which Microsoft Entra endpoint and tenant? Scopes Which resource is the token intended for? LoginHint Which identity did SSMS suggest? Account provided / GetAllAccounts Is an identity already resolved or cached? ErrorCode / AADSTS Why did the authentication step fail? Broker / WAM / authorization_type Which authentication mechanism actually handled the request? AccessToken returned / source: Was a usable token obtained, and from where? DurationTotalInMs and related metrics Where was the authentication time spent? With those ten searches, a trace containing hundreds of lines becomes much easier to read. Appendix – Sanitized MSAL Trace Sample The following extract is a sanitized and condensed version of the MSAL trace used in this investigation. User names, tenant IDs, correlation IDs, account identifiers, and other PII have been replaced with placeholders. The goal is to provide a practical sample where you can apply the 10 searches described in this article. First connection ==== GetAccounts started ==== GetAllAccounts ... found 0 accounts Found 0 RTs and 0 accounts in MSAL cache === AcquireTokenSilent Parameters === LoginHint provided: True Account provided: false Authority - https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>/ Scopes - https://database.windows.net//.default ApiId - AcquireTokenSilent CorrelationId - <correlation-id-1> === Token Acquisition (SilentRequest) started === MsalUiRequiredException ErrorCode: no_account_for_login_hint No account was found in the token cache having this login hint. MSAL then moved to interactive authentication: === InteractiveParameters Data === LoginHint provided: True Prompt: select_account Authority - https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>/ Scopes - https://database.windows.net//.default ApiId - AcquireTokenInteractive LoginHint - user@contoso.com CorrelationId - <correlation-id-2> Broker is configured Using Windows account picker Calling SignInInteractivelyAsync The broker successfully obtained the token: auth_flow: Broker authorization_type: Interactive time_in_queue_ms: 2152 request_duration: 2183 WAM response status success Successfully retrieved token AccessToken returned: True AccessToken Type: Bearer === Token Acquisition finished successfully === source: Broker DurationTotalInMs: 2185 DurationInCacheInMs: 0 DurationInHttpInMs: 0 Second connection A few seconds later, the account was already available: GetAllAccounts ... found 1 accounts Returning 1 accounts === AcquireTokenSilent Parameters === LoginHint provided: False Account provided: Account username: user@contoso.com Authority - https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant-id>/ Scopes - https://database.windows.net//.default ApiId - AcquireTokenSilent CorrelationId - <correlation-id-3> This time the broker completed the request silently: Acquiring token silently authorization_type: WindowsIntegratedAuth auth_flow: AT request_duration: 2 WAM response status success Successfully retrieved token AccessToken returned: True === Token Acquisition finished successfully === source: Broker DurationTotalInMs: 13 DurationInCacheInMs: 0 DurationInHttpInMs: 0 What changed? First connection No account → LoginHint → AcquireTokenSilent → no_account_for_login_hint → Interactive / WAM → Token → 2185 ms Second connection Resolved Account → AcquireTokenSilent → WAM → Token → 13 ms These extracts contain the main strings I now look for when reviewing an SSMS MSAL trace: CorrelationId ApiId Authority Scopes LoginHint Account provided / GetAllAccounts ErrorCode / AADSTS Broker / WAM AccessToken returned DurationTotalInMs
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