IIS 7.5 Server Farm with State Server not sharing sessions

Question

We have 2 2008 R2 servers running IIS7.5 using shared configuration, shared content, and the ASP.NET State Server. We know that the state server is working because I can login to server A, recycle the server, and my session is still intact. Yet when I try to cross servers, I have to login again.

Now, with shared configuration and shared content, the two main culprits (application ID/path, and machine keys) should not be an issue. Not sure where else to look.

These servers were initially configured separately to use the state server, but I had hoped centralizing config and content would eliminate this problem.

Answer 1

Be sure to have the same Machine Key on both machine and same path. Check out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325056 for more information

Answer 2

Check out the following link it will help with general configuration:

http://forums.iis.net/t/1202777.aspx?Sharing+ASP+NET+State+Service+sessions+between+IIS7+5+and+8+0+doesn+t+work

Although this link is about IIS 7.5 vs IIS 8, what you need to know is .NET 4.0 and .NET 4.5 are not compatible, and that's key.

I had 2 IIS 7.5 servers in a web farm that suddenly stopped sharing session state correctly even though everything appeared to be configured correctly. Come to find out, one of the boxes had been updated to .NET 4.5 with windows update. Updating the second box to .NET 4.5 fixed things. Here is a link on how to tell what version of .NET you servers are running.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh925568(v=vs.110).aspx