Horizon "OpenIdConnect" was not authenticated. Failure message: "Not authenticated"

Question

I have installed Horizon in Sitecore 10.1. There were no errors in the installation but when opening the horizon URL, I am getting the following errors

2022-03-18T14:41:01.7789590+11:00 [INF] (Sitecore Authoring Host/SYDM18676L) Request finished in 2.3979ms 500 
2022-03-18T14:41:08.1615328+11:00 [INF] (Sitecore Authoring Host/SYDM18676L) Request starting HTTP/1.1 GET http://sc101horizon.dev.local/composer/pages  
2022-03-18T14:41:08.1617326+11:00 [INF] (Sitecore Authoring Host/SYDM18676L) "OpenIdConnect" was not authenticated. Failure message: "Not authenticated"
2022-03-18T14:41:08.1624277+11:00 [ERR] (Sitecore Authoring Host/SYDM18676L) Connection id ""0HMG8I3VTK6LP"", Request id ""0HMG8I3VTK6LP:00000004"": An unhandled exception was thrown by the application.
System.InvalidOperationException: IDX20803: Unable to obtain configuration from: '[PII is hidden]'.
   at Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.ConfigurationManager`1.GetConfigurationAsync(CancellationToken cancel)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.OpenIdConnect.OpenIdConnectHandler.HandleChallengeAsync(AuthenticationProperties properties)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.AuthenticationHandler`1.ChallengeAsync(AuthenticationProperties properties)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.AuthenticationService.ChallengeAsync(HttpContext context, String scheme, AuthenticationProperties properties)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapWhenMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapWhenMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapWhenMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapWhenMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.StaticFiles.StaticFileMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Sitecore.Services.GraphQL.Hosting.GraphQLCacheStatsMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Sitecore.Horizon.API.Gateway.ConfigureSitecore.<>c__DisplayClass4_0.<<Configure>b__1>d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Cors.Infrastructure.CorsMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapWhenMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authentication.AuthenticationMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Sitecore.Plugin.Authentication.ErrorHandling.AuthenticationExceptionMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder.Extensions.MapMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.IISIntegration.IISMiddleware.Invoke(HttpContext httpContext)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.Kestrel.Core.Internal.Http.HttpProtocol.ProcessRequests[TContext](IHttpApplication`1 application)
2022-03-18T14:41:08.1636521+11:00 [INF] (Sitecore Authoring Host/SYDM18676L) Request finished in 2.1186ms 500 

Anyone has got the following error and how to fix this?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Sitecore Horizon is a separate instance. So even if you're logged into Sitecore you still need to login again in Sitecore Horizon. This should be done automatically by SSO with Sitecore Identity. But if there is an issue with your Sitecore Identity environment you might get this error. Could you please visit the URL of your Sitecore Identity environment and check if it works? If it doesn't you need to fix that and after that Sitecore Horizon should work too.

I had the same issue where I forgot to update the license file of Sitecore Identity. So all environments worked except Sitecore Identity. Than you will also run into this error.

Answer 2

Error more over related with the Authentication so two possibilities can be there:

1. Either your Sitecore Identity Server is not working or your Sitecore Licence is expired.
2. It seems like your Sitecore Identity server, Sitecore CMS, and Horizon URL setting in the configs file does not listen to the correct URL:

Verify the URL and settings in the below configs:

1. Sitecore.IdentityServer.Host.xml config:
   Go to the path: {Sitecore Identity Server Instance}\Config\production\Sitecore.IdentityServer.Host.xml

<HorizonHttpsCorsOrigin>{your-horizon-url}</HorizonHttpsCorsOrigin>

2. Host.xml and OpenIdConnect.xml configs:
   Go to the path: {Sitecore Horizon Instance}\Config\Host.xml

<HostBaseUrl>{your-horizon-url}</HostBaseUrl>

Go to the path: {Sitecore Horizon Instance}\Config\OpenIdConnect.xml

<Authority>{your-identity-server-url}</Authority>

3. Sitecore.Horizon.Integration.config:
   Go to the path: {sitecore CMS Instance}\App_Config\Modules\Horizon\Sitecore.Horizon.Integration.config

<setting name="Horizon.ClientHost" value="{your-horizon-url}" />

for other issues and solutions in Sitecore Horizon see the blog post:

• Sitecore Horizon Issue Pre and Post installation
• Sitecore Horizon Authoring and The SSL connection could not be established

Answer 3

As per my findings for this error, you need to enable viewing the PII logs to view more details about this error. To do this you need to add the following line in ConfigureServices() to Startup.cs. The code should be something like this.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    IdentityModelEventSource.ShowPII = true; //Add this line
    ....

And if you will see the below link, you will find that the other users find the same issues and they have defined some options to solve this.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54435551/invalidoperationexception-idx20803-unable-to-obtain-configuration-from-pii

Answer 4

Go to IIS, browse the Identity server URL and check if your Identity server is not shown 502 error / should show a login page when you browse it. For further error info, you can also look into event viewer windows --> application logs.